■ffff  It  HI  j  ; 

MS 


-  . 


I 


.,■  BOOK  OF    VERSES 
LONDON   VOLUNTARIES 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
LOS  ANGELES 


POEMS 


POEMS 


By 


WILLIAM  ERNEST  HENLEY 


The  summer' s  flower  is  to  the  summer  siveet, 
Though  to  itself  it  only  live  and  die. 

SHAKESPEARE 


Seventh  Edition 
(revised) 


NEW    YORK 
CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

153-157    FIFTH    AVENUE 
I9O4 


First  Edition  printed  January  1898 
Second  Edition  printed  March  1898 
Third  Edition  printed  September  1898 
Fourth  Edition  printed  January  1 900 
Fifth  Edition  printed  December  100 1 
Sixth  Edition  printed  August  1903 
Seventh  Edition  printed  February  1904 


Edinburgh  :  T.  and  A.  Constable,  Printers  to  His  Majesty 


TO  MT  WIFE 

Take,  dear,  my  little  sheaf  of  songs, 

For,  old  or  new, 
All  that  is  good  in  them  belongs 

Only  to  you  ; 


And,  singing  as  when  all  was  young, 

They  will  recall 
Those  others,  lived  hut  left  unsung — 

The  lest  of  all. 


W.  E.  H 


April   1888 

September   1897. 


• »  j 


. 


«   * 


ENGLISH 


•    •     • 

■  •••••       .: 

.•%♦••     .... 



•  •  ......... 


.  .  .       . 
.  • « i 


,  • 


»•     . 


■    - 


^DFERTISEMENT 

My  friend  and  publisher,  Mr.  Alfred  Nutt,  asks  me  to  introduce 
this  re-issue  of  old  work  in  a  new  shape.  At  his  request,  then,  I 
have  to  say  that  nearly  all  the  numbers  contained  in  the  present 
volume  are  reprinted  from  '  A  Booh  of  Verses'  (1888)  and 
'  London  Voluntaries  '  (  1 892-3  ).  From  the  first  of  these  I  have 
removed  some  copies  of  verse  which  seemed  to  me  scarce  'worth 
keeping  ;  and  I  have  recovered  for  it  certain  others  from  those 
publications  which  had  made  room  for  them.  I  have  corrected  where 
I  could,  added  such  dates  as  I  might,  and,  by  re-arrangement  and 
revision,  done  my  lest  to  give  my  book,  such  as  it  is,  its  final  form. 
If  any  be  displeased  by  the  result,  I  can  but  submit  that  my  verses 
an'  my  own,  and  that  this  is  how  I  would  have  them  read. 

The  work  of  revision  has  reminded  me  that,  small  as  is  this  book 
of  mine,  it  is  all  in  the  matter  of  verse  that  I  have  to  show  for  the 
years  between  1872  and  1897.  A  principal  reason  is  that,  after 
spending  the  better  part  of  my  life  in  the  pursuit  of  poetry,  I  found 
myself  [about  1877)  so  utterly  unmarketable  that  I  had  to  own 
myself  beaten  in  art,  and  to  addict  myself  to  journalism  for  the  next 
ten  years.  Came  the  production  by  my  old  friend,  Mr.  H.  B. 
Donkin,  in  his  little  collection  of  <  Voluntaries'  (1888),  compiled 
for  that  Bast-End  Hospital  to  which  he  has  devoted  so  much  time 
and  energy  and  skill,  of  those  unrhyming  rhythms  in  which  1  had 
tried  to  quintessentialize,  as  (/believe)  one  scarce  can  do  in  rhyme, 
my  impressions  of  the  Old  Edinburgh  Infirmary.      They  had  long 


VI 11 


ADVERTISEMENT 


since  been  rejected  by  every  editor  of  standing  in  London — I  had  tv  ell- 
nigh  said  in  the  world  ;  but  as  soon  as  Mr.  Nutt  had  read  them, 
he  entreated  me  to  look  for  more.  I  did  as  I  ivas  told  ;  old  dusty 
sheaves  tvere  dragged  to  light  ;  the  work  of  selection  and  correction 
•was  begun  ;  /  burned  much  ;  I  found  that,  after  all,  the  lyrical 
instinct  had  slept — not  died  ;  I  ventured  (in  brief}  '  A  Booh  of 
Verses?  It  ivas  received  ivith  so  much  interest  that  I  tooh  heart 
once  more,  and  wrote  the  numbers  presently  reprinted  from  '  The 
National  Observer'  in  the  collection  first  (1892)  called  'The  Song 
of  the  Sword'  and  afterwards  (1893)  'London  Voluntaries.'  If 
I  have  said  nothing  since,  it  is  that  I  have  nothing  to  say  which  is 
not,  as  yet,  too  personal — too  personal  and  too  afflicting — for 
utterance. 

Tor  the  nratter  of  my  booh,  it  is  there  to  speak  for  itself: — 

'  Here  's  a  sigh  to  those  ivho  lo-ve  me 
And  a  smile  to  those  ivho  hate^ 

I  refer  to  it  for  the  simple  pleasure  of  reflecting  that  it  has  made 
me  many  friends  and  some  enemies. 

W.  E.  H. 

Musivell  Hill,  \th  September  1897. 


CONTENTS 


IN   HOSPITAL 


J.  Enter  Patient 
*-"  II.   Waiting 
III.  Interior 
iv.  Before  . 
v.  Operation 
vi.  After    . 
vii.  Vigil      . 
vm.  Staff-Nurse :   Old 
IX.  Lady-Probationer 
x.  Staff-Nurse:  New 
XI.  Clinical 
xn.  Etching 
xm.  Casualty 
xiv.  Ave,  Caesar! 
xv.  'The  Chief 
xvi.  House-Surgeon 
xvii.  Interlude 
xvm.  Children:   Private 
xix.  Scrubber 
xx.  Visitor 
xxi.  Romance 
xxn.  Pastoral 
xxiii.  Music  . 


Style 


Style 


Ward 


PAGE 
3 

4 
5 
6 

7 

9 

io 

i3 
H 
15 
16 

19 
21 
23 

24 

25 
26 

28 
29 
30 
3i 
33 
35 


X 


POEMS 


xxiv.  Suicide 37 

xxv.   Apparition    ........  39 

xxvi.  Anterotics 40 

xxvii.  Nocturn 41 

xxviii.  Discharged             42 

Envoy 44 

The  Song  of  the  Sword 47 

Arabian  Nights'  Entertainments         ....  57 


BRIC-A-BRAC 

Ballade  of  a  Toyokuni  Colour-Print 

Ballade  of  Youth  and  Age  . 

Ballade  of  Midsummer  Days  and  Nights 

Ballade  of  Dead  Actors 

Ballade  Made  in  the  Hot  Weather 

Ballade  of  Truisms      .... 

Double  Ballade  of  Life  and  Fate  . 

Double  Ballade  of  the  Nothingness  of  Things 

At  Queensferry    ..... 

Orientate      ...... 

In  Fisherrow        ..... 

Back-View  ...... 

Croquis         ...  . 

Attadale,  West  Highlands  . 

From  a  Window  in  Princes  Street 

In  the  Dials         ..... 

The  gods  are  dead       .... 

Let  us  be  drunk  ..... 

When  you  are  old 

Beside  the  idle  summer  sea  . 


79 
81 

83 
85 
87 
89 
91 
94 
98 

99 

100 
101 
102 
103 
104 
105 
106 
107 
108 
109 


CONTENTS 


XI 


The  ways  of  Death  are  soothing  and  serene 
We  shall  surely  die      .... 
What  is  to  come  ..... 


PAGH 

no 
in 

112 


ECHOES 

I.  To  my  Mother 
II.  Life  is  bitter     . 
ill.  O,  gather  me  the  rose 
iv.  Out  of  the  night  that  covers  me 
V.  I  am  the  Reaper 
vi.  Praise  the  generous  gods  . 
vii.  Fill  a  glass  with  golden  wine     . 
viu.  We  Ml  go  no  more  a-roving 
IX.  Madam  Life 's  a  piece  in  bloom 
X.  The  sea  is  full  of  wandering  foam 
XI.  Thick  is  the  darkness 
xn.  To  me  at  my  fifth-floor  window 
Xlii.  Bring  her  again,  O  western  wind 
xiv.  The  wan  sun  westers,  faint  and  slow 
XV.  There  is  a  wheel  inside  my  head 
XVI.  While  the  west  is  paling    . 
xvn.  The  sands  are  alive  with  sunshine 
xvm.  The  nightingale  has  a  lyre  of  gold 
XIX.  Your  heart  has  trembled  to  my  tongue 
XX.  The  surges  gushed  and  sounded 
XXI.  We  flash  across  the  level   . 
xxii.  The  West  a  glimmering  lake  of  light 
xxiii.  The  skies  are  strown  with  stars 
xxiv.  The  full  sea  rolls  and  thunders 
xxv.  In  the  year  that's  come  and  gone 
xxvi.  In  the  placid  summer  midnight 
xxvu.  She  sauntered  by  the  swinging  seas 


1*5 

117 
118 
119 
120 
122 
123 
124 
126 
127 
128 
129 
130 

Hi 

133 

135 
136 

137 

138 

139 

140 

142 

143 
144 

146 

148 


Xll 


POEMS 


PAGE 

XXVIII. 

Blithe  dreams  arise  to  greet  us    . 

149 

XXIX. 

A  child 

152 

XXX. 

Kate-a-Whimsies,  John-a-Dreams 

I  54 

XXXI. 

0,  have  you  blessed,  behind  the  stars  . 

x55 

XXXII. 

O,  Falmouth  is  a  fine  town 

156 

XXXIII. 

The  ways  are  green  ..... 

158 

XXXIV. 

Life  in  her  creaking  shoes  .... 

160 

XXXV. 

A  late  lark  twitters  from  the  quiet  skies 

161 

XXXVI. 

I  gave  my  heart  to  a  woman 

163 

XXXVII. 

Or  ever  the  knightly  years  were  gone . 

164 

XXXVIII. 

On  the  way  to  Kew  ..... 

166 

XXXIX. 

The  past  was  goodly  once  .... 

168 

XL. 

The  spring,  my  dear  ..... 

169 

XLI. 

The  Spirit  of  Wine    ..... 

170 

XLII. 

A  wink  from  Hesper           .... 

172 

XLIII. 

Friends  .  .  .  old  friends  .... 

173 

XLIV. 

If  it  should  come  to  be       . 

•       175 

XLV. 

From  the  brake  the  Nightingale 

179 

XLVI. 

In  the  waste  hour       ...... 

178 

XLVII. 

Crosses  and  troubles  ..... 
LONDON  VOLUNTARIES 

181 

I.  Grave 

...... 

185 

II.  Andante  con  Moto  ........ 

187 

in.  Scherzando    ........ 

192 

iv.  Largo  t 

?  Mesto        ........ 

186 

v.  Allegro 

Maestoso    ...                    . 

200 

RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS 

Prologue         

1.  Where  forlorn  sunsets  flare  and  fade  . 
11.  We  are  the  Choice  of  the  Will . 


207 
209 
211 


CONTENTS 


Xlll 


in.  A  desolate  shore        .... 
iv.  It  came  with  the  threat  of  a  waning  moon 
v.  Why,  my  heart,  do  we  love  her  so      . 
vi.  One  with  the  ruined  sunset 
vii.  There  's  a  regret        .... 
viii.  Time  and  the  Earth 
ix.  '  As  like  the  Woman  as  you  can ' 
X.  Midsummer  midnight  skies 
XI.  Gulls  in  an  aery  morrice.  . 
xii.  Some  starlit  garden  grey  with  dew,    . 
xm.  Under  a  stagnant  sky 
xiv.  Fresh  from  his  fastnesses    . 
xv.  You  played  and  sang  a  snatch  of  song 
xvi.  Space  and  dread  and  the  dark    . 
xvn.  Tree,  Old  Tree  of  the  Triple  Crook  . 
xviii.  When  you  wake  in  your  crib     . 
xix.  O,  Time  and  Change 
xx.  The  shadow  of  Dawn 
XXI.  When  the  wind  storms  by  with  a  shout 
XXII.  Trees  and  the  menace  of  night  . 
xxm.  Here  they  trysted,  here  they  strayed    . 
xxiv.  Not  to  the  staring  Day 
xxv.  What  have  I  done  for  you 

Epilogue  ....-• 


PAGE 
214 

2l6 

247 
218 
219 
221 
223 
225 
227 
228 
229 
23I 
233 

234 
236 

239 

242 

243 
244 
245 

247 
249 

2S3 

256 


IN     HOSPITAL 


1873-1875 


On  ne  saurait  dire  a  quel  point  un  homme,  seul  Jans  son 

lit  et  malade,  de~uient  personnel. — 

Balzac. 


ENTER   PATIENT 

The  morning  mists  still  haunt  the  stony  street ; 

The  northern  summer  air  is  shrill  and  cold  ; 

And  lo,  the  Hospital,  grey,  quiet,  old, 

Where  Life  and  Death  like  friendly  charFerers  meet. 

Thro'  the  loud  spaciousness  and  draughty  gloom 

A  small,  strange  child — so  aged  yet  so  young  ! — 

Her  little  arm  besplinted  and  beslung, 

Precedes  me  gravely  to  the  waiting-room. 

I  limp  behind,  my  confidence  all  gone. 

The  grey-haired  soldier-porter  waves  me  on, 

And  on  I  crawl,  and  still  my  spirits  fail  : 

A  tragic  meanness  seems  so  to  environ 

These  corridors  and  stairs  of  stone  and  iron, 

Cold,  naked,  clean — half-workhouse  and  half-jail. 


IN  HOSPITAL 


ii 
WAITING 

A  square,  squat  room  (a  cellar  on  promotion), 
Drab  to  the  soul,  drab  to  the  very  daylight ; 
Plasters  astray  in  unnatural-looking  tinware  ; 
Scissors  and  lint  and  apothecary's  jars. 

Here,  on  a  bench  a  skeleton  would  writhe  from, 
Angry  and  sore,  I  wait  to  be  admitted  : 
Wait  till  my  heart  is  lead  upon  my  stomach, 
While  at  their  ease  two  dressers  do  their  chores. 

One  has  a  probe — it  feels  to  me  a  crowbar. 

A  small  boy  sniffs  and  shudders  after  bluestone. 
A  poor  old  tramp  explains  his  poor  old  ulcers. 
Life  is  (I  think)  a  blunder  and  a  shame. 


INTERIOR 


in 
INTERIOR 

The  gaunt  brown  walls 
Look  infinite  in  their  decent  meanness. 
There  is  nothing  of  home  in  the  noisy  kettle, 

The  fulsome  fire. 

The  atmosphere 
Suggests  the  trail  of  a  ghostly  druggist. 
Dressings  and  lint  on  the  long,  lean  table — 

Whom  are  they  for  ? 

The  patients  yawn, 
Or  lie  as  in  training  for  shroud  and  coffin. 
A  nurse  in  the  corridor  scolds  and  wrangles. 

It 's  grim  and  strange. 

Far  footfalls  clank. 
The  bad  burn  waits  with  his  head  unbandaged. 
My  neighbour  chokes  in  the  clutch  of  chloral  .  . 

O,  a  gruesome  world  ! 


IN  HOSPITAL 


IV 

BEFORE 

Behold  me  waiting — waiting  for  the  knife. 

A  little  while,  and  at  a  leap  I  storm 

The  thick,  sweet  mystery  of  chloroform, 

The  drunken  dark,  the  little  death-in-life. 

The  gods  are  good  to  me  :  I  have  no  wife, 

No  innocent  child,  to  think  of  as  I  near 

The  fateful  minute  ;  nothing  ail-too  dear 

Unmans  me  for  my  bout  of  passive  strife. 

Yet  am  I  tremulous  and  a  trifle  sick, 

And,  face  to  face  with  chance,  I  shrink  a  little  : 

My  hopes  are  strong,  my  will  is  something  weak. 

Here  comes  the  basket?     Thank  you.     I  am  ready. 

But,  gentlemen  my  porters,  life  is  brittle  : 

You  carry  Caesar  and  his  fortunes — steady  ! 


OPERATION 


OPERATION 

You  are  carried  in  a  basket, 

Like  a  carcase  from  the  shambles, 

To  the  theatre,  a  cockpit 

Where  they  stretch  you  on  a  table. 

Then  they  bid  you  close  your  eyelids, 
And  they  mask  you  with  a  napkin, 
And  the  anassthetic  reaches 
Hot  and  subtle  through  your  being. 

And  you  gasp  and  reel  and  shudder 
In  a  rushing,  swaying  rapture, 
While  the  voices  at  your  elbow 
Fade — receding — fainter — farther. 

Lights  about  you  shower  and  tumble, 
And  your  blood  seems  crystallising — 
Edged  and  vibrant,  yet  within  you 
Racked  and  hurried  back  and  forward. 


8  IN  HOSPITAL 

Then  the  lights  grow  fast  and  furious, 
And  you  hear  a  noise  of  waters, 
And  you  wrestle,  blind  and  dizzy, 
In  an  agony  of  effort, 

Till  a  sudden  lull  accepts  you, 

And  you  sound  an  utter  darkness  . 
And  awaken  .  .  .  with  a  struggle  . 
On  a  hushed,  attentive  audience. 


AFTER 


VI 

AFTER 

Like  as  a  flamelet  blanketed  in  smoke, 
So  through  the  anaesthetic  shows  my  life  ; 
So  flashes  and  so  fades  my  thought,  at  strife 
With  the  strong  stupor  that  I  heave  and  choke 
And  sicken  at,  it  is  so  foully  sweet. 
Faces  look  strange  from  space — and  disappear. 
Far  voices,  sudden  loud,  offend  my  ear — 
And  hush  as  sudden.     Then  my  senses  fleet : 
All  were  a  blank,  save  for  this  dull,  new  pain 
That  grinds  my  leg  and  foot ;  and  brokenly 
Time  and  the  place  glimpse  on  to  me  again  ; 
And,  unsurprised,  out  of  uncertainty, 
I  wake — relapsing — somewhat  faint  and  fain, 
To  an  immense,  complacent  dreamery. 


io  IN  HOSPITAL 


VII 

VIGIL 

Lived  on  one's  back, 
In  the  long  hours  of  repose, 
Life  is  a  practical  nightmare — 
Hideous  asleep  or  awake. 

Shoulders  and  loins 

Ache ! 

Ache,  and  the  mattress, 
Run  into  boulders  and  hummocks, 
Glows  like  a  kiln,  while  the  bedclothes- 
Tumbling,  importunate,  daft — 
Ramble  and  roll,  and  the  gas, 
Screwed  to  its  lowermost, 
An  inevitable  atom  of  light, 
Haunts,  and  a  stertorous  sleeper 
Snores  me  to  hate  and  despair. 

All  the  old  time 

Surges  malignant  before  me  ; 


VIGIL  ii 

Old  voices,  old  kisses,  old  songs 

Blossom  derisive  about  me  ; 

While  the  new  days 

Pass  me  in  endless  procession  : 

A  pageant  of  shadows 

Silently,  leeringly  wending 

On.  .   .  .  and  still  on  .  .   .  still  on  ! 

Far  in  the  stillness  a  cat 

Languishes  loudly.     A  cinder 

Falls,  and  the  shadows 

Lurch  to  the  leap  of  the  flame.     The  next 

man  to  me 
Turns  with  a  moan  ;  and  the  snorer, 
The  drug  like  a  rope  at  his  throat, 
Gasps,  gurgles,  snorts  himself  free,  as  the 

night-nurse, 
Noiseless  and  strange, 
Her  bull's  eye  half-lanterned  in  apron 
(Whispering  me,  'Are  ye  no  sleepin'  yet? '), 
Passes,  list-slippered  and  peering, 
Round  .   .   .  and  is  gone. 

Sleep  comes  at  last — 

Sleep  full  of  dreams  and  misgivings — 


12  IN  HOSPITAL 

Broken  with  brutal  and  sordid 
Voices  and  sounds  that  impose  on  me, 
Ere  I  can  wake  to  it, 
The  unnatural,  intolerable  day. 


STAFF-NURSE  :  OLD  STYLE  13 


VIII 

STAFF-NURSE :  OLD  STYLE 

The  greater  masters  of  the  commonplace, 
Rembrandt  and  good  Sir  Walter — only  these 
Could  paint  her  all  to  you  :  experienced  ease 
And  antique  liveliness  and  ponderous  grace  ; 
The  sweet  old  roses  of  her  sunken  face  ; 
The  depth  and  malice  of  her  sly,  grey  eyes  ; 
The  broad  Scots  tongue  that  flatters,  scolds,  defies  ; 
The  thick  Scots  wit  that  fells  you  like  a  mace. 
These  thirty  years  has  she  been  nursing  here, 
Some  of  them  under  Syme,  her  hero  still. 
Much  is  she  worth,  and  even  more  is  made  of  her. 
Patients  and  students  hold  her  very  dear. 
The  doctors  love  her,  tease  her,  use  her  skill. 
They  say  '  The  Chief  himself  is  half-afraid  of  her. 


14  IN  HOSPITAL 


IX 


LADY-PROBATIONER 

Some  three,  or  five,  or  seven,  and  thirty  years ; 

A  Roman  nose  ;  a  dimpling  double-chin  ; 

Dark  eyes  and  shy  that,  ignorant  of  sin, 

Are  yet  acquainted,  it  would  seem,  with  tears  ; 

A  comely  shape  ;  a  slim,  high-coloured  hand, 

Graced,  rather  oddly,  with  a  signet  ring  ; 

A  bashful  air,  becoming  everything  ; 

A  well-bred  silence  always  at  command. 

Her  plain  print  gown,  prim  cap,  and  bright  steel 

chain 
Look  out  of  place  on  her,  and  I  remain 
Absorbed  in  her,  as  in  a  pleasant  mystery. 
Quick,  skilful,  quiet,  soft  in  speech  and  touch  .  .  . 
'  Do  you  like  nursing  ? '     '  Yes,  Sir,  very  much.' 
Somehow,  I  rather  think  she  has  a  history. 


STAFF-NURSE:  NEW  STYLE  15 


STAFF-NURSE:  NEW  STYLE 

Blue-eyed  and  bright  of  face  but  waning  fast 

Into  the  sere  of  virginal  decay, 

I  view  her  as  she  enters,  day  by  day, 

As  a  sweet  sunset  almost  overpast. 

Kindly  and  calm,  patrician  to  the  last, 

Superbly  falls  her  gown  of  sober  gray, 

And  on  her  chignon's  elegant  array 

The  plainest  cap  is  somehow  touched  with  caste. 

She  talks  Beethoven  ;  frowns  disapprobation 

At   Balzac's    name,   sighs    it   at   'poor   George 

Sand's'  ; 
Knows  that  she  has  exceeding  pretty  hands  ; 
Speaks  Latin  with  a  right  accentuation  ; 
And  gives  at  need  (as  one  who  understands) 
Draught,  counsel,  diagnosis,  exhortation. 


16  IN  HOSPITAL 


XI 

CLINICAL 

Hist?  .   .  . 

Through  the  corridor's  echoes, 

Louder  and  nearer 

Comes  a  great  shuffling  of  feet. 

Quick,  every  one  of  you, 

Straight  your  quilts,  and  be  decent  ! 

Here  's  the  Professor. 

In  he  comes  first 

With  the  bright  look  we  know, 

From  the  broad,  white  brows  the  kind  eyes 

Soothing  yet  nerving  you.     Here  at  his  elbow, 

White-capped,  white-aproned,  the  Nurse, 

Towel  on  arm  and  her  inkstand 

Fretful  with  quills. 

Here   in  the  ruck,  anyhow, 


CLINICAL  17 

Surging  along, 

Louts,  duffers,  exquisites,  students,  and  prigs — 

Whiskers  and  foreheads,  scarf-pins  and  spectacles — 

Hustles  the  Class  !     And  they  ring  themselves 

Round  the  first  bed,  where  the  Chief 

(His  dressers  and  clerks  at  attention), 

Bends  in  inspection  already. 

So  shows  the  ring 

Seen  from  behind  round  a  conjurer 

Doing  his  pitch  in  the  street. 

High  shoulders,   low  shoulders,   broad  shoulders, 

narrow  ones, 
Round,  square,  and  angular,  serry  and  shove  ; 
While  from  within  a  voice, 
Gravely  and  weightily  fluent, 
Sounds  ;  and  then  ceases  ;   and  suddenly 
(Look  at  the  stress  of  the  shoulders  !) 
Out  of  a  quiver  of  silence, 
Over  the  hiss  of  the  spray, 
Comes  a  low  cry,  and  the  sound 
Of  breath  quick  intaken  through  teeth 
Clenched  in  resolve.     And  the  Master 
Breaks  from  the  crowd,  and  goes, 
Wiping  his  hands, 

R 


18  IN  HOSPITAL 

To  the  next  bed,  with  his  pupils 
Flocking  and  whispering  behind  him. 

Now  one  can  see. 

Case  Number  One 

Sits  (rather  pale)  with  his  bedclothes 

Stripped  up,  and  showing  his  foot 

(Alas  for  God's  Image  !) 

Swaddled  in  wet,  white  lint 

Brilliantly  hideous  with  red. 


ETCHING  19 


XII 

ETCHING 

Two  and  thirty  is  the  ploughman. 
He  's  a  man  of  gallant  inches, 
And  his  hair  is  close  and  curly, 

And  his  beard  ; 
But  his  face  is  wan  and  sunken, 
And  his  eyes  are  large  and  brilliant, 
And  his  shoulder-blades  are  sharp, 

And  his  knees. 

He  is  weak  of  wits,  religious, 
Full  of  sentiment  and  yearning, 
Gentle,  faded — with  a  cough 

And  a  snore. 
When  his  wife  (who  was  a  widow, 
And  is  many  years  his  elder) 
Fails  to  write,  and  that  is  always, 

He  desponds. 


20  IN  HOSPITAL 

Let  his  melancholy  wander, 
And  he  '11  tell  you  pretty  stories 
Of  the  women  that  have  wooed  him 

Long  ago  ; 
Or  he  '11  sing  of  bonnie  lasses 
Keeping  sheep  among  the  heather, 
With  a  crackling,  hackling  click 

In  his  voice. 


CASUALTY  21 


XIII 


CASUALTY 

As  with  varnish  red  and  glistening 

Dripped  his  hair  ;   his  feet  looked  rigid  ; 
Raised,  he  settled  stiffly  sideways  : 
You  could  see  his  hurts  were  spinal. 

He  had  fallen  from  an  engine, 

And  been  dragged  along  the  metals. 
It  was  hopeless,  and  they  knew  it ; 
So  they  covered  him,  and  left  him. 

As  he  lay,  by  fits  half  sentient, 
Inarticulately  moaning, 
With  his  stockinged  soles  protruded 
Stark  and  awkward  from  the  blankets, 

To  his  bed  there  came  a  woman, 

Stood   and  looked  and  sighed  a  little, 
And  departed  without  speaking, 
As  himself  a  few  hours  after. 


22  IN  HOSPITAL 

I  was  told  it  was  his  sweetheart. 
They  were  on  the  eve  of  marriage. 
She  was  quiet  as  a  statue, 
But  her  lip  was  grey  and  writhen. 


AVE,  CAESAR  23 


v. 


XIV 

AVE,  CAESAR! 

From  the  winter's  grey  despair, 
From  the  summer's  golden  languor, 
Death,  the  lover  of  Life, 
Frees  us  for  ever. 

Inevitable,  silent,  unseen, 

Everywhere  always, 

Shadow  by  night  and  as  light  in  the  day, 

Signs  she  at  last  to  her  chosen  ; 

And,  as  she  waves  them  forth, 

Sorrow  and  Joy 

Lay  by  their  looks  and  their  voices, 

Set  down  their  hopes,  and  are  made 

One  in  the  dim  Forever. 

Into  the  winter's  grey  delight, 
Into  the  summer's  golden  dream, 
Holy  and  high  and  impartial, 
Death,  the  mother  of  Life, 
Mingles  all  men  for  ever. 


24  IN  HOSPITAL 


xv 
'THE  CHIEF' 

His  brow  spreads  large  and  placid,  and  his  eye 

Is  deep  and  bright,  with  steady  looks  that  still. 

Soft  lines  of  tranquil  thought  his  face  fulfill — 

His  face  at  once  benign  and  proud  and  shy. 

If  envy  scout,  if  ignorance  deny, 

His  faultless  patience,  his  unyielding  will, 

Beautiful  gentleness  and  splendid  skill, 

Innumerable  gratitudes  reply. 

His  wise,  rare  smile  is  sweet  with  certainties, 

And  seems  in  all  his  patients  to  compel 

Such  love  and  faith  as  failure  cannot  quell. 

We  hold  him  for  another  Herakles, 

Battling  with  custom,  prejudice,  disease, 

As  once  the  son  of  Zeus  with  Death  and  Hell. 


HOUSE-SURGEON  25 


XVI 

HOUSE-SURGEON 

Exceeding  tall,  but  built  so  well  his  height 
Half-disappears  in  flow  of  chest  and  limb ; 
Moustache  and  whisker  trooper-like  in  trim  ; 
Frank-faced,  frank-eyed,  frank-hearted ;  always 

bright 
And    always    punctual — morning,    noon,    and 

night ; 
Bland  as  a  Jesuit,  sober  as  a  hymn  ; 
Humorous,  and  yet  without  a  touch  of  whim  ; 
Gentle  and  amiable,  yet  full  of  fight. 
His  piety,  though  fresh  and  true  in  strain, 
Has  not  yet  whitewashed  up  his  common  mood 
To  the  dead  blank  of  his  particular  Schism. 
Sweet,  unaggressive,  tolerant,  most  humane, 
Wild  artists  like  his  kindly  elderhood, 
And  cultivate  his  mild  Philistinism. 


26  IN  HOSPITAL 


XVII 

INTERLUDE 

O,  the  fun,  the  fun  and  frolic 

That  The  Wind  that  Shakes  the  Barley 
Scatters  through  a  penny-whistle 
Tickled  with  artistic  fingers  ! 

Kate  the  scrubber  (forty  summers, 
Stout  but  sportive)  treads  a  measure, 
Grinning,  in  herself  a  ballet, 
Fixed  as  fate  upon  her  audience. 

Stumps  are  shaking,  crutch-supported  ; 
Splinted  fingers  tap  the  rhythm  ; 
And  a  head  all  helmed  with  plasters 
Wags  a  measured  approbation. 

Of  their  mattress-life  oblivious, 

All  the  patients,  brisk  and  cheerful, 
Are  encouraging  the  dancer, 
And  applauding  the  musician. 


INTERLUDE  27 

Dim  the  gas-lights  in  the  output 
Of  so  many  ardent  smokers, 
Full  of  shadow  lurch  the  corners, 
And  the  doctor  peeps  and  passes. 

There  are,  maybe,  some  suspicions 
Of  an  alcoholic  presence  .  .  . 
*  Tak'  a  sup  of  this,  my  wumman  ! '   .   .  . 
New  Year  comes  but  once  a  twelvemonth 


a8  IN  HOSPITAL 


XVIII 

CHILDREN:  PRIVATE  WARD 

Here  in  this  dim,  dull,  double-bedded  room, 

I  play  the  father  to  a  brace  of  boys, 

Ailing  but  apt  for  every  sort  of  noise, 

Bedfast  but  brilliant  yet  with  health  and  bloom. 

Roden,  the  Irishman,  is  '  sieven  past,' 

Blue-eyed,  snub-nosed,  chubby,  and  fair  of  face. 

Willie's  but  six,  and  seems  to  like  the  place, 

A  cheerful  little  collier  to  the  last. 

They  eat,  and  laugh,  and  sing,  and  fight,  all  day  ; 

All  night  they  sleep  like  dormice.     See   them 

play 
At  Operations  : — Roden,  the  Professor, 
Saws,  lectures,  takes  the  artery  up,  and  ties  ; 
Willie,  self-chloroformed,  with  half-shut  eyes, 
Holding    the    limb    and    moaning — Case    and 

Dresser. 


SCRUBBER  29 


XIX 

SCRUBBER 

She's  tall  and  gaunt,  and  in  her  hard,  sad  face 
With  flashes  of  the  old  fun's  animation 
There  lowers  the  fixed  and  peevish  resignation 
Bred  of  a  past  where  troubles  came  apace. 
She  tells  me  that  her  husband,  ere  he  died, 
Saw  seven  of  their  children  pass  away, 
And  never  knew  the  little  lass  at  play 
Out  on  the  green,  in  whom  he's  deified. 
Her  kin  dispersed,  her  friends  forgot  and  gone, 
All  simple  faith  her  honest  Irish  mind, 
Scolding  her  spoiled  young  saint,  she  labours  on  : 
Telling  her  dreams,  taking  her  patients'  part, 
Trailing  her  coat  sometimes :  and  you  shall  find 
No  rougher,  quainter  speech,  nor  kinder  heart. 


3o  IN  HOSPITAL 


xx 

VISITOR 

Her  little  face  is  like  a  walnut  shell 

With  wrinkling  lines ;  her  soft,  white  hair  adorns 

Her  withered  brows  in  quaint,  straight  curls,  like 

horns ; 
And  all  about  her  clings  an  old,  sweet  smell. 
Prim  is  her  gown  and  quakerlike  her  shawl. 
Well  might  her  bonnets  have  been  born  on  her. 
Can  you  conceive  a  Fairy  Godmother 
The  subject  of  a  strong  religious  call  ? 
In  snow  or  shine,  from  bed  to  bed  she  runs, 
All  twinkling  smiles  and  texts  and  pious  tales, 
Her  mittened  hands,  that  ever  give  or  pray, 
Bearing  a  sheaf  of  tracts,  a  bag  of  buns  : 
A  wee  old  maid  that  sweeps  the  Bridegroom's  way, 
Strong  in  a  cheerful  trust  that  never  fails. 


ROMANCE  31 


xxi 

ROMANCE 

'  Talk  of  pluck  ! '  pursued  the  Sailor, 
Set  at  euchre  on  his  elbow, 
'  I  was  on  the  wharf  at  Charleston, 
Just  ashore  from  off  the  runner. 

'  It  was  grey  and  dirty  weather, 
And  I  heard  a  drum  go  rolling, 
Rub-a-dubbing  in  the  distance, 
Awful  dour-like  and  defiant 

'  In  and  out  among  the  cotton, 

Mud,  and  chains,  and  stores,  and  anchors, 
Tramped  a  squad  of  battered  scarecrows — 
Poor  old  Dixie's  bottom  dollar  ! 

'  Some  had  shoes,  but  all  had  rifles, 

Them  that  wasn't  bald  was  beardless, 
And  the  drum  was  rolling  Dixie, 
And  they  stepped  to  it  like  men,  sir  ! 


32  IN  HOSPITAL 

'  Rags  and  tatters,  belts  and  bayonets, 
On  they  swung,  the  drum  a-rolling, 
Mum  and  sour.      It  looked  like  righting, 
And  they  meant  it  too,  by  thunder  ! ' 


PASTORAL 


33 


XXII 

PASTORAL 

It  's  the  Spring. 

Earth  has  conceived,  and  her  bosom, 

Teeming  with  summer,  is  glad. 

Vistas  of  change  and  adventure, 

Thro'  the  green  land 

The  grey  roads  go  beckoning  and  winding, 

Peopled  with  wains,  and  melodious 

With  harness-bells  jangling : 

Jangling  and  twangling  rough  rhythms 

To  the  slow  march  of  the  stately,  great  horses 

Whistled  and  shouted  along. 

White  fleets  of  cloud, 

Argosies  heavy  with  fruitfulness, 

Sail  the  blue  peacefully.    Green  flame  the  hedgerows. 

Blackbirds  are  bugling,  and  white  in  wet  winds 

Sway  the  tall  poplars. 

c 


34  IN  HOSPITAL 

Pageants  of  colour  and  fragrance, 
Pass  the  sweet  meadows,  and  viewless 
Walks  the  mild  spirit  of  May, 
Visibly  blessing  the  world. 

O,  the  brilliance  of  blossoming  orchards  ! 

O,  the  savour  and  thrill  of  the  woods, 

When  their  leafage  is  stirred 

By  the  flight  of  the  Angel  of  Rain  ! 

Loud  lows  the  steer  ;  in  the  fallows 

Rooks  are  alert ;  and  the  brooks 

Gurgle  and  tinkle  and  trill.     Thro'  the  gloamings, 

Under  the  rare,  shy  stars, 

Boy  and  girl  wander, 

Dreaming  in  darkness  and  dew. 

It 's  the  Spring. 

A  sprightliness  feeble  and  squalid 
Wakes  in  the  ward,  and  I  sicken, 
Impotent,  winter  at  heart. 


MUSIC 


35 


xxnr 

MUSIC 

Down  the  quiet  eve, 
Thro'  my  window  with  the  sunset 
Pipes  to  me  a  distant  organ 
Foolish  ditties  ; 

And,  as  when  you  change 
Pictures  in  a  magic  lantern, 
Books,  beds,  bottles,  floor,  and  ceiling 
Fade  and  vanish, 

And  I  'm  well  once  more.  .  .  . 
August  flares  adust  and  torrid, 
But  my  heart  is  full  of  April 
Sap  and  sweetness. 

In  the  quiet  eve 

I  am  loitering,  longing,  dreaming  .  .  . 
Dreaming,  and  a  distant  organ 
Pipes  me  ditties. 


36  IN  HOSPITAL 

I  can  see  the  shop, 
I  can  smell  the  sprinkled  pavement, 
Where  she  serves — her  chestnut  chignon 
Thrills  my  senses  ! 

O,  the  sight  and  scent, 

Wistful  eve  and  perfumed  pavement ! 

In  the  distance  pipes  an  organ  .  .  . 

The  sensation 

Comes  to  me  anew, 
And  my  spirit  for  a  moment 
Thro'  the  music  breathes  the  blessed 
Airs  of  London. 


SUICIDE 


37 


XXIV 

SUICIDE 

Staring  corpselike  at  the  ceiling, 
See  his  harsh,  unrazored  features, 
Ghastly  brown  against  the  pillow, 
And  his  throat — so  strangely  bandaged  ! 

Lack  of  work  and  lack  of  victuals, 
A  debauch  of  smuggled  whisky, 
And  his  children  in  the  workhouse 
Made  the  world  so  black  a  riddle 

That  he  plunged  for  a  solution  ; 

And,  although  his  knife  was  edgeless, 

He  was  sinking  fast  towards  one, 

When  they  came,  and  found,  and  saved  him. 

Stupid  now  with  shame  and  sorrow, 
In  the  night  I  hear  him  sobbing. 
But  sometimes  he  talks  a  little. 
He  has  told  me  all  his  troubles. 


38  IN  HOSPITAL 

In  his  broad  face,  tanned  and  bloodless, 
White  and  wild  his  eyeballs  glisten  ; 
And  his  smile,  occult  and  tragic, 
Yet  so  slavish,  makes  you  shudder  ! 


APPARITION  39 


XXV 

APPARITION 

Thin-legged,  thin-chested,  slight  unspeakably, 
Neat-footed  and  weak-fingered  :   in  his  face — 
Lean,  large-boned,  curved  of  beak,  and  touched 

with  race, 
Bold-lipped,  rich-tinted,  mutable  as  the  sea, 
The  brown  eyes  radiant  with  vivacity — 
There  shines  a  brilliant  and  romantic  grace, 
A  spirit  intense  and  rare,  with  trace  on  trace 
Of  passion  and  impudence  and  energy. 
Valiant  in  velvet,  light  in  ragged  luck, 
Most  vain,  most  generous,  sternly  critical, 
Buffoon  and  poet,  lover  and  sensualist : 
A  deal  of  Ariel,  just  a  streak  of  Puck, 
Much  Antony,  of  Hamlet  most  of  all, 
And  something  of  the  Shorter-Catechist. 


4Q  IN  HOSPITAL 


XXVI 

ANTEROTICS 

Laughs  the  happy  April  morn 
Thro'  my  grimy,  little  window, 
And  a  shaft  of  sunshine  pushes 
Thro*  the  shadows  in  the  square. 

Dogs  are  tracing  thro'  the  grass, 
Crows  are  cawing  round  the  chimneys, 
In  and  out  among  the  washing 
Goes  the  West  at  hide-and-seek. 

Loud  and  cheerful  clangs  the  bell. 
Here  the  nurses  troop  to  breakfast. 
Handsome,  ugly,  all  are  women  .  .  . 
O,  the  Spring — the  Spring — the  Spring  ! 


NOCTURN  41 


XXVII 

NOCTURN 

At  the  barren  heart  of  midnight, 
When  the  shadow  shuts  and  opens 
As  the  loud  flames  pulse  and  flutter, 
I  can  hear  a  cistern  leaking. 

Dripping,  dropping,  in  a  rhythm, 
Rough,  unequal,  half-melodious, 
Like  the  measures  aped  from  nature 
In  the  infancy  of  music  ; 

Like  the  buzzing  of  an  insect, 
Still,  irrational,  persistent  .   .  . 
I  must  listen,  listen,  listen 
In  a  passion  of  attention  ; 

Till  it  taps  upon  my  heartstrings, 
And  my  very  life  goes  dripping, 
Dropping,  dripping,  drip-drip-dropping, 
In  the  drip-drop  of  the  cistern. 


42  IN  HOSPITAL 


XXVIII 

DISCHARGED 

Carry  me  out 

Into  the  wind  and  the  sunshine, 

Into  the  beautiful  world. 

O,  the  wonder,  the  spell  of  the  streets  ! 
The  stature  and  strength  of  the  horses, 
The  rustle  and  echo  of  footfalls, 
The  flat  roar  and  rattle  of  wheels  ! 
A  swift  tram  floats  huge  on  us  .   .   . 
It 's  a  dream  ? 

The  smell  of  the  mud  in  my  nostrils 
Blows  brave — like  a  breath  of  the  sea  ! 

As  of  old, 

Ambulant,  undulant  drapery, 
Vaguely  and  strangely  provocative, 
Flutters  and  beckons.     O,  yonder — 
Is  it  ? — the  gleam  of  a  stocking  ! 
Sudden,  a  spire 


DISCHARGED  43 

Wedged  in  the  mist !     O,  the  houses, 
The  long  lines  of  lofty,  grey  houses, 
Cross-hatched  with  shadow  and  light ! 
These  are  the  streets.  .  .  . 
Each  is  an  avenue  leading 
Whither  I  will ! 

Free  .   .  .  ! 

Dizzy,  hysterical,  faint, 

I  sit,  and  the  carriage  rolls  on  with  me 

Into  the  wonderful  world. 

The  Old  Infirmary,  Edinburgh,  1873-75 


44  IN  HOSPITAL 


ENVOY 

To  Charles  Baxter 

Do  you  remember 

That  afternoon — that  Sunday  afternoon  ! — 

When,  as  the  kirks  were  ringing  in, 

And  the  grey  city  teemed 

With  Sabbath  feelings  and  aspects, 

Lewis — our  Lewis  then, 

Now  the  whole  world's — and  you, 

Young,  yet  in  shape  most  like  an  elder,  came, 

Laden  with  Balzacs 

(Big,  yellow  books,  quite  impudently  French), 

The  first  of  many  times 

To  that  transformed  back-kitchen  where  I  lay 

So  long,  so  many  centuries — 

Or  years  is  it  ! — ago  ? 

Dear  Charles,  since  then 
We  have  been  friends,  Lewis  and  you  and  I, 
(How  good  it  sounds,  c  Lewis  and  you  and  I  ! ') 
Such  friends,  I  like  to  think, 


ENVOY  45 

That  in  us  three,  Lewis  and  me  and  you, 

Is  something  of  that  gallant  dream 

Which  old  Dumas — the  generous,  the  humane, 

The  seven-and-seventy  times  to  be  forgiven  ! — 

Dreamed  for  a  blessing  to  the  race, 

The  immortal  Musketeers. 

Our  Athos  rests — the  wise,  the  kind, 

The  liberal  and  august,  his  fault  atoned, 

Rests  in  the  crowded  yard 

There  at  the  west  of  Princes  Street.    We  three — 

You,  I,  and  Lewis  ! — still  afoot, 

Are  still  together,  and  our  lives, 

In  chime  so  long,  may  keep 

(God  bless  the  thought !) 

Unj angled  till  the  end. 

W.  E.  H. 

Chiswick,  March  1888 


THE   SONG 


OF   THE    SWORD 

(To  Rudyard  Kipling) 


1890 


The  Sword 

Singing — 

The  voice  of  the  Sword  from  the  heart  of 

the  Sword 
Clanging  imperious 
Forth  from  Time's  battlements 
His  ancient  and  triumphing  Song. 

In  the  beginning, 
Ere  God  inspired  Himself 
Into  the  clay  thing 
Thumbed  to  His  image, 
The  vacant,  the  naked  shell 
Soon  to  be  Man  : 
Thoughtful  He  pondered  it, 
Prone  there  and  impotent, 


50  THE  SONG  OF  THE  SWORD 

Fragile,  inviting 

Attack  and  discomfiture  ; 

Then,  with  a  smile — 

As  He  heard  in  the  Thunder 

That  laughed  over  Eden 

The  voice  of  the  Trumpet, 

The  iron  Beneficence, 

Calling  his  dooms 

To  the  Winds  of  the  world — 

Stooping,  He  drew 

On  the  sand  with  His  finger 

A  shape  for  a  sign 

Of  his  way  to  the  eyes 

That  in  wonder  should  waken, 

For  a  proof  of  His  will 

To  the  breaking  intelligence. 

That  was  the  birth  of  me  : 

I  am  the  Sword. 

Bleak  and  lean,  grey  and  cruel, 
Short-hilted,  long  shafted, 
I  froze  into  steel ; 
And  the  blood  of  my  elder, 
His  hand  on  the  hafts  of  me, 
Sprang  like  a  wave 


THE  SONG  OF  THE  SWORD  51 

In  the  wind,  as  the  sense 

Of  his  strength  grew  to  ecstasy  ; 

Glowed  like  a  coal 

In  the  throat  of  the  furnace  ; 

As  he  knew  me  and  named  me 

The  War-Thing,  the  Comrade, 

Father  of  honour 

And  giver  of  kingship, 

The  fame-smith,  the  song-master, 

Bringer  of  women 

On  fire  at  his  hands 

For  the  pride  of  fulfilment, 

Priest  (saith  the  Lord) 

Of  his  marriage  with  victory. 

Ho  !  then,  the  Trumpet, 

Handmaid  of  heroes, 

Calling  the  peers 

To  the  place  of  espousals  ! 

Ho  !  then,  the  splendour 

And  glare  of  my  ministry, 

Clothing  the  earth 

With  a  livery  of  lightnings  ! 

Ho  !  then,  the  music 

Of  battles  in  onset, 

And  ruining  armours, 


52  THE  SONG  OF  THE  SWORD 

And  God's  gift  returning 

In  fury  to  God  ! 

Thrilling  and  keen 

As  the  song  of  the  winter  stars, 

Ho  !  then,  the  sound 

Of  my  voice,  the  implacable 

Angel  of  Destiny  ! — 

I  am  the  Sword. 

Heroes,  my  children, 

Follow,  O,  follow  me  ! 

Follow,  exulting 

In  the  great  light  that  breaks 

From  the  sacred  Companionship  ! 

Thrust  through  the  fatuous, 

Thrust  through  the  fungous  brood, 

Spawned  in  my  shadow 

And  gross  with  my  gift ! 

Thrust  through,  and  hearken 

O,  hark,  to  the  Trumpet, 

The  Virgin  of  Battles, 

Calling,  still  calling  you 

Into  the  Presence, 

Sons  of  the  Judgment, 

Pure  wafts  of  the  Will  ! 


THE  SONG  OF  THE  SWORD  53 

Edged  to  annihilate, 

Hiked  with  government, 

Follow,  O,  follow  me, 

Till  the  waste  places 

All  the  grey  globe  over 

Ooze,  as  the  honeycomb 

Drips,  with  the  sweetness 

Distilled  of  my  strength, 

And,  teeming  in  peace 

Through  the  wrath  of  my  coming, 

They  give  back  in  beauty 

The  dread  and  the  anguish 

They  had  of  me  visitant  ! 

Follow,  O  follow,  then, 

Heroes,  my  harvesters  ! 

Where  the  tall  grain  is  ripe 

Thrust  in  your  sickles  ! 

Stripped  and  adust 

In  a  stubble  of  empire, 

Scything  and  binding 

The  full  sheaves  of  sovranty  : 

Thus,  O,  thus  gloriously, 

Shall  you  fulfil  yourselves  ! 

Thus,  O,  thus  mightily, 

Show  yourselves  sons  of  mine — 


54  THE  SONG  OF  THE  SWORD 

Yea,  and  win  grace  of  me  : 
I  am  the  Sword  ! 


I  am  the  feast-maker  : 
Hark,  through  a  noise 
Of  the  screaming  of  eagles, 
Hark  how  the  Trumpet, 
The  mistress  of  mistresses, 
Calls,  silver-throated 
And  stern,  where  the  tables 
Are  spread,  and  the  meal 
Of  the  Lord  is  in  hand  ! 
Driving  the  darkness, 
Even  as  the  banners 
And  spears  of  the  Morning  ; 
Sifting  the  nations, 
The  slag  from  the  metal, 
The  waste  and  the  weak 
From  the  fit  and  the  strong  ; 
Fighting  the  brute, 
The  abysmal  Fecundity  ; 
Checking  the  gross, 
Multitudinous  blunders, 
The  groping,  the  purblind 


THE  SONG  OF  THE  SWORD  55 

Excesses  in  service 
Of  the  Womb  universal, 
The  absolute  drudge  ; 
Firing  the  charactry 
Carved  on  the  World, 
The  miraculous  gem 
In  the  seal-ring  that  burns 
On  the  hand  of  the  Master — 
Yea  !  and  authority 
Flames  through  the  dim, 
Unappeasable  Grisliness 
Prone  down  the  nethermost 
Chasms  of  the  Void  ! — 
Clear  singing,  clean  slicing  ; 
Sweet  spoken,  soft  finishing  ; 
Making  death  beautiful, 
Life  but  a  coin 
To  be  staked  in  the  pastime 
Whose  playing  is  more 
Than  the  transfer  of  being  ; 
Arch-anarch,  chief  builder, 
Prince  and  evangelist, 
I  am  the  Will  of  God  : 
I  am  the  Sword. 


56  THE  SONG  OF  THE  SWORD 

The  Sword 

Singing — 

The  voice  of  the  Sword  from  the  heart 

of  the  Sword 
Clanging  majestical, 
As  from  the  starry-staired 
Courts  of  the  primal  Supremacy , 
His  high,  irresistible  song. 


ARABIAN    NIGHTS' 
ENTERTAINMENTS 

(To  Elizabeth  Robins  Pennell) 


1893 


'  O  mes  cheres  Milk  et  Une  Nuits  ! ' — Fantasia. 

Once  on  a  time 

There  was  a  little  boy  :   a  master-mage 

By  virtue  of  a  Book 

Of  magic — O,  so  magical  it  filled 

His  life  with  visionary  pomps 

Processional !     And  Powers 

Passed  with  him  where  he  passed.     And  Thrones 

And  Dominations,  glaived  and  plumed  and  mailed, 

Thronged  in  the  criss-cross  streets, 

The  palaces  pell-mell  with  playing-fields, 

Domes,  cloisters,  dungeons,  caverns,  tents,  arcades, 

Of  the  unseen,  silent  City,  in  his  soul 

Pavilioned  jealously,  and  hid 

As  in  the  dusk,  profound, 

Green  stillnesses  of  some  enchanted  mere. 

I  shut  mine  eyes.  .  .  .  And  lo  ! 

A  flickering  snatch  of  memory  that  floats 

69 


60  ARABIAN  NIGHTS' 

Upon  the  face  of  a  pool  of  darkness  five 

And  thirty  dead  years  deep, 

Antic  in  girlish  broideries 

And  skirts  and  silly  shoes  with  straps 

And  a  broad-ribanded  leghorn,  he  walks 

Plain  in  the  shadow  of  a  church 

(St.  Michael's  :  in  whose  brazen  call 

To  curfew  his  first  wails  of  wrath  were  whelmed) 

Sedate  for  all  his  haste 

To  be  at  home  ;  and,  nestled  in  his  arm, 

Inciting  still  to  quiet  and  solitude, 

Boarded  in  sober  drab, 

With  small,  square,  agitating  cuts 

Let  in  a-top  of  the  double-columned,  close, 

Quakerlike  print,  a  Book  !   .   .   . 

What  but  that  blessed  brief 

Of  what  is  gallantest  and  best 

In  all  the  full-shelved  Libraries  of  Romance  ? 

The  Book  of  rocs, 

Sandalwood,  ivory,  turbans,  ambergris, 

Cream-tarts,  and  lettered  apes,  and  calendars, 

And  ghouls,  and  genies — O,  so  huge 

They  might  have  overed  the  tall  Minster  Tower 

Hands  down,  as  schoolboys  take  a  post  ! 

In  truth,  the  Book  of  Camaralzaman, 


ENTERTAINMENTS  61 

Schemselnihar  and  Sindbad,  Scheherezade 

The  peerless,  Bedreddin,  Badroulbadour, 

Cairo  and  Serendib  and  Candahar, 

And  Caspian,  and  the  dim,  terrific  bulk — 

Ice-ribbed,  fiend-visited,  isled  in  spells  and  storms — 

Of  Kaf  !   .   .  .  That  centre  of  miracles, 

The  sole,  unparalleled  Arabian  Nights  ! 


Old  friends  I  had  a-many — kindly  and  grim 

Familiars,  cronies  quaint 

And  goblin  !     Never  a  Wood  but  housed 

Some  morrice  of  dainty  dapperlings.     No  Brook 

But  had  his  nunnery 

Of  green-haired,  silvry-curving  sprites, 

To  cabin  in  his  grots,  and  pace 

His  lilied  margents.     Every  lone  Hillside 

Might  open  upon  Elf-Land.     Every  Stalk 

That  curled  about  a  Bean-stick  was  of  the  breed 

Of  that  live  ladder  by  whose  delicate  rungs 

You  climbed  beyond  the  clouds,  and  found 

The  Farm-House  where  the  Ogre,  gorged 

And  drowsy,  from  his  great  oak  chair, 

Among  the  flitches  and  pewters  at  the  fire, 

Called  for  his  Faery  Harp.     And  in  it  flew, 


62  ARABIAN  NIGHTS' 

And,  perching  on  the  kitchen  table,  sang 

Jocund  and  jubilant,  with  a  sound 

Of  those  gay,  golden-vowelled  madrigals 

The  shy  thrush  at  mid-May 

Flutes  from  wet  orchards  flushed  with  the  triumph- 
ing dawn  ; 

Or  blackbirds  rioting  as  they  listened  still, 

In  old-world  woodlands  rapt  with  an  old-world 
spring, 

For  Pan's  own  whistle,  savage  and  rich  and  lewd, 

And  mocked  him  call  for  call  ! 


I  could  not  pass 
The  half-door  where  the  cobbler  sat  in  view 
Nor  figure  me  the  wizen  Leprechaun, 
In  square-cut,  faded  reds  and  buckle-shoes, 
Bent  at  his  work  in  the  hedge-side,  and  know 
Just  how  he  tapped  his  brogue,  and  twitched 
His  wax-end  this  and  that  way,  both  with  wrists 
And  elbows.     In  the  rich  June  fields, 
Where  the  ripe  clover  drew  the  bees, 
And  the  tall  quakers  trembled,  and  die  West  Wind 
Lolled  his  half-holiday  away 
Beside  me  lolling  and  lounging  through  my  own, 


ENTERTAINMENTS  63 

'Twas  good  to  follow  the  Miller's  Youngest  Son 

On  his  white  horse  along  the  leafy  lanes  ; 

For  at  his  stirrup  linked  and  ran, 

Not  cynical  and  trapesing,  as  he  loped 

From  wall  to  wall  above  the  espaliers, 

But  in  the  bravest  tops 

That  market-town,  a  town  of  tops,  could  show  : 

Bold,  subtle,  adventurous,  his  tail 

A  banner  flaunted  in  disdain 

Of  human  stratagems  and  shifts  : 

King  over  All  the  Catlands,  present  and  past 

And  future,  that  moustached 

Artificer  of  fortunes,  Puss-in-Boots  ! 

Or  Bluebeard's  Closet,  with  its  plenishing 

Of  meat-hooks,  sawdust,  blood, 

And  wives  that  hung  like  fresh-dressed  carcases — 

Odd-fangled,  most  a  butcher's,  part 

A  faery  chamber  hazily  seen 

And  hazily  figured — on  dark  afternoons 

And  windy  nights  was  visiting  of  the  best. 

Then,  too,  the  pelt  of  hoofs 

Out  in  the  roaring  darkness  told 

Of  Heme  the  Hunter  in  his  antlered  helm 

Galloping,  as  with  despatches  from  the  Pit, 

Between  his  hell-born  Hounds. 


64  ARABIAN  NIGHTS' 

And  Rip  Van  Winkle  .  .  .  often  I  lurked  to  hear, 
Outside  the  long,  low  timbered,  tarry  wall, 
The  mutter  and  rumble  of  the  trolling  bowls 
Down  the  lean  plank,  before  they  fluttered  the  pins  ; 
For,  listening,  I  could  help  him  play 
His  wonderful  game, 

In  those  blue,  booming  hills,  with  Mariners 
Refreshed   from   kegs  not   coopered   in  this   our 
world. 

But  what  were  these  so  near, 

So  neighbourly  fancies  to  the  spell  that  brought 

The  run  of  Ali  Baba's  Cave 

Just  for  the  saying  '  Open  Sesame,' 

With  gold  to  measure,  peck  by  peck, 

In  round,  brown  wooden  stoups 

You  borrowed  at  the  chandler's  ?  ...  Or  one  time 

Made  you  Aladdin's  friend  at  school, 

Free  of  his  Garden  of  Jewels,  Ring  and  Lamp 

In  perfect  trim  ?   .   .   .   Or  Ladies,  fair 

For  all  the  embrowning  scars  in  their  white  breasts, 

Went  labouring  under  some  dread  ordinance, 

Which  made  them  whip,  and  bitterly  cry  the  while, 

Strange  Curs  that  cried  as  they, 

Till  there  was  never  a  Black  Bitch  of  all 


ENTERTAINMENTS  65 

Your  consorting  but  might  have  gone 
Spell-driven  miserably  for  crimes 
Done  in  the  pride  of  womanhood  and  desire  .  .  . 
Or  at  the  ghostliest  altitudes  of  night, 
While  you  lay  wondering  and  acold, 
Your  sense  was  fearfully  purged ;  and  soon 
Queen  Labe,  abominable  and  dear, 
Rose  from  your  side,  opened  the  Box  of  Doom, 
Scattered  the  yellow  powder  (which  I  saw 
Like  sulphur  at  the  Docks  in  bulk), 
And  muttered  certain  words  you  could  not  hear  ; 
And  there  !  a  living  stream, 

The  brook  you  bathed  in,  with  its  weeds  and  flags 
And  cresses,  glittered  and  sang 
Out  of  the  hearthrug  over  the  nakedness, 
Fair -scrubbed    and    decent,    of    your    bedroom 
floor !  .  .  « 

I  was — how  many  a  time  ! — 

That  Second  Calendar,  Son  of  a  Kins:, 

On  whom  'twas  vehemently  enjoined, 

Pausing  at  one  mysterious  door, 

To  pry  no  closer,  but  content  his  soul 

With  his  kind  Forty.     Yet  I  could  not  rest 

For  idleness  and  ungovernable  Fate. 

E 


66  ARABIAN  NIGHTS' 

And  the  Black  Horse,  which  fed  on  sesame 

(That  wonder-working  word  !), 

Vouchsafed  his  back  to  me,  and  spread  his  vans, 

And  soaring,  soaring  on 

From  air  to  air,  came  charging  to  the  ground 

Sheer,  like  a  lark  from  the  midsummer  clouds, 

And,    shaking    me    out    of    the    saddle,   where    1 

sprawled 
Flicked  at  me  with  his  tail, 
And  left  me  blinded,  miserable,  distraught 
(Even  as  I  was  in  deed, 

When  doctors  came,  and  odious  things  were  done 
On  my  poor  tortured  eyes 
With  lancets ;  or  some  evil  acid  stung 
And  wrung  them  like  hot  sand, 
And  desperately  from  room  to  room 
Fumble  I  must  my  dark,  disconsolate  way), 
To  get  to  Bagdad  how  I  might.     But  there 
I  met  with  Merry  Ladies.     O  you  three — 
Sane,  Amine,  Zobeide — when  my  heart 
Forgets  you  all  shall  be  forgot  ! 
And  so  we  supped,  we  and  the  rest, 
On  wine  and  roasted  lamb,  rose-water,  dates, 
Almonds,  pistachios,  citrons.     And  Haroun 
Laughed  out  of  his  lordly  beard 


ENTERTAINMENTS  67 

On  Giaffar  and  Mesrour  (7  knew  the  Three 
For  all  their  Mossoul  habits).  And  outside 
The  Tigris,  flowing  swift 

Like  Severn  bend  for  bend,  twinkled  and  gleamed 
With   broken    and    wavering    shapes    of  stranger 

stars ; 
The  vast,  blue  night 
Was  murmurous  with  peris'  plumes 
And  the  leathern  wings  of  genies  ;  words  of  power 
Were  whispering  ;  and  old  fishermen, 
Casting  their  nets  with  prayer,  might  draw  to  shore 
Dead  loveliness  :  or  a  prodigy  in  scales 
Worth  in  the  Caliph's  Kitchen  pieces  of  gold  : 
Or  copper  vessels,  stopped  with  lead, 
Wherein  some  Squire  of  Eblis  watched  and  railed, 
In  durance  under  potent  charactry 
Graven  by  the  seal  of  Solomon  the  King.  .  .  . 

Then,  as  the  Book  was  glassed 

In  Life  as  in  some  olden  mirror's  quaint, 

Bewildering  angles,  so  would  Life 

Flash  light  on  light  back  on  the  Book ;  and  Doth 

Were  changed.     Once  in  a  house  decayed 

From  better  days,  harbouring  an  errant  show 

(For  all  its  stories  of  dry-rot 


68  ARABIAN  NIGHTS' 

Were  filled  with  gruesome  visitants  in  wax, 
Inhuman,  hushed,  ghastly  with  Painted  Eyes), 
I  wandered  ;  and  no  living  soul 
Was  nearer  than  the  pay-box  ;  and  I  stared 
Upon  them  staring — staring.     Till  at  last, 
Three  sets  of  rafters  from  the  streets, 
I  strayed  upon  a  mildewed,  rat-run  room, 
With  the  two  Dancers,  horrible  and  obscene, 
Guarding  the  door  :  and  there,  in  a  bedroom-set, 
Behind  a  fence  of  faded  crimson  cords, 
With  an  aspect  of  frills 
And  dimities  and  dishonoured  privacy 
That  made  you  hanker  and  hesitate  to  look, 
A  Woman  with  her  litter  of  Babes — all  slain, 
All  in  their  nightgowns,  all  with  Painted  Eyes 
Staring — still  staring  ;  so  that  I  turned  and  ran 
As  for  my  neck,  but  in  the  street 
Took  breath.    The  same,  it  seemed, 
And  yet  not  all  the  same,  I  was  to  find, 
As  I  went  up !     For  afterwards, 
Whenas  I  went  my  round  alone — 
All  day  alone — in  long,  stern,  silent  streets, 
Where  I  might  stretch  my  hand  and  take 
Whatever   I   would  :   still    there    were   Shapes   of 
Stone, 


ENTERTAINMENTS  69 

Motionless,  lifelike,  frightening — for  the  Wrath 

Had  smitten  them  ;  but  they  watched, 

This  by  her  melons  and  figs,  that  by  his  rings 

And  chains  and  watches,  with  the  hideous  gaze, 

The  Painted  Eyes  insufferable, 

Now,  of  those  grisly  images  ;  and  I 

Pursued  my  best-beloved  quest, 

Thrilled  with  a  novel  and  delicious  fear. 

So  the  night  fell — with  never  a  lamplighter  ; 

And  through  the  Palace  of  the  King 

I  groped  among  the  echoes,  and  I  felt 

That  they  were  there, 

Dreadfully  there,  the  Painted  staring  Eyes, 

Hall  after  hall  .  .  .  Till  lo  !  from  far 

A  Voice  !     And  in  a  little  while 

Two  tapers  burning  !     And  the  Voice, 

Heard  in  the  wondrous  Word  of  Gcd,  was — whose? 

Whose  but  Zobeide's, 

The  lady  of  my  heart,  like  me 

A  True  Believer,  and  like  me 

An  outcast  thousands  of  leagues  beyond  the  pale  ! . .  . 

Or,  sailing  to  the  Isles 

Of  Khaledan,  I  spied  one  evenfall 

A  black  blotch  in  the  sunset ;  and  it  grew 


70  ARABIAN  NIGHTS' 

Swiftly  .   .   .  and  grew.     Tearing  their  beards, 
The  sailors  wept  and  prayed  ;  but  the  grave  ship, 
Deep  laden  with  spiceries  and  pearls,  went  mad, 
Wrenched  the  long  tiller  out  of  the  steersman's 

hand, 
And,  turning  broadside  on, 
As  the  most  iron  would,  was  haled  and  sucked 
Nearer,  and  nearer  yet ; 
And,  all  awash,  with  horrible  lurching  leaps 
Rushed  at  that  Portent,  casting  a  shadow  now 
That  swallowed  sea  and  sky  ;  and  then, 
Anchors  and  nails  and  bolts 

Flew  screaming  out  of  her,  and  with  clang  on  clang, 
A  noise  of  fifty  stithies,  caught  at  the  sides 
Of  the  Magnetic  Mountain  ;  and  she  lay, 
A  broken  bundle  of  firewood,  strown  piecemeal 
About  the  waters  ;  and  her  crew 
Passed  shrieking,  one  by  one  ;  and  I  was  left 
To  drown.     All  the  long  night  I  swam  ; 
But  in  the  morning,  O,  the  smiling  coast 
Tufted  with  date-trees,  meadowlike, 
Skirted  with  shelving  sands !     And  a  great  wave 
Cast  me  ashore  ;  and  I  was  saved  alive. 
So,  giving  thanks  to  God,  I  dried  my  clothes, 
And,  faring  inland,  in  a  desert  place 


ENTERTAINMENTS  71 

I  stumbled  on  an  iron  ring — 

The  fellow  of  fifty  built  into  the  Quays  : 

When,  scenting  a  trap-door, 

I  dug,  and  dug  ;  until  my  biggest  blade 

Stuck  into  wood.     And  then, 

The  flight  of  smooth-hewn,  easy-falling  stairs, 

Sunk  in  the  naked  rock  !     The  cool,  clean  vault, 

So  neat  with  niche  on  niche  it  might  have  been 

Our  beer-cellar  but  for  the  rows 

Of  brazen  urns  (like  monstrous  chemist's  jars) 

Full  to  the  wide,  squat  throats 

With  gold-dust,  but  a-top 

A  layer  of  pickled-walnut-looking  things 

I  knew  for  olives  !     And  far,  O,  far  away, 

The  Princess  of  China  languished  !     Far  away 

Was  marriage,  with  a  Vizier  and  a  Chief 

Of  Eunuchs  and  the  privilege 

Of  going  out  at  night 

To  play — unkenned,  majestical,  secure — 

Where  the  old,  brown,  friendly  river  shaped 

Like  Tigris  shore  for  shore  !     Haply  a  Ghoul 

Sat  in  the  churchyard  under  a  frightened  moon, 

A  thighbone  in  his  fist,  and  glared 

At  supper  with  a  Lady  :  she  who  took 

Her  rice  with  tweezers  grain  by  grain. 


72  ARABIAN    NIGHTS' 

Or  you  might  stumble — there  by  the  iron  gates 

Of  the  Pump  Room — underneath  the  limes — 

Upon  Bedreddin  in  his  shirt  and  drawers, 

Just  as  the  civil  Genie  laid  him  down. 

Or  those  red-curtained  panes, 

Whence  a  tame  cornet  tenored  it  throatily 

Of  beer-pots  and  spittoons  and  new  long  pipes, 

Might  turn  a  caravansery's,  wherein 

You  found  Noureddin  Ali,  loftily  drunk, 

And  that  fair  Persian,  bathed  in  tears, 

You  'd  not  have  given  away 

For  all  the  diamonds  in  the  Vale  Perilous 

You  had  that  dark  and  disleaved  afternoon 

Escaped  on  a  roc's  claw, 

Disguised  like  Sindbad — but  in  Christmas  beef ! 

And  all  the  blissful  while 

The  schoolboy  satchel  at  your  hip 

Was  such  a  bulse  of  gems  as  should  amaze 

Grey-whiskered  chapmen  drawn 

From  over  Caspian  :  yea,  the  Chief  Jewellers 

Of  Tartary  and  the  bazaars, 

Seething  with  traffic,  of  enormous  Ind.: 

Thus  cried,  thus  called  aloud,  to  the  child  heart 
The  magian  East  :  thus  the  child  eyes 


ENTERTAINMENTS  73 

Spelled  out  the  wizard  message  by  the  light 

Of  the  sober,  workaday  hours 

They  saw,  week  in  week  out,  pass,  and  still  pass 

In  the  sleepy  Minster  City,  folded  kind 

In  ancient  Severn's  arm, 

Amongst  her  water-meadows  and  her  docks, 

Whose  floating  populace  of  ships — 

Galliots  and  luggers,  light-heeled  brigantines, 

Bluff   barques    and    rake -hell    fore -and -afters — 

brought 
To  her  very  doorsteps  and  geraniums 
The  scents  of  the  World's  End  ;  the  calls 
That  may  not  be  gainsaid  to  rise  and  ride 
Like  fire  on  some  high  errand  of  the  race  ; 
The  irresistible  appeals 
For  comradeship  that  sound 
Steadily  from  the  irresistible  sea. 
Thus  the  East  laughed  and  whispered,  and  the  tale, 
Telling  itself  anew 
In  terms  of  living,  labouring  life, 
Took  on  the  colours,  busked  it  in  the  wear 
Of  life  that  lived  and  laboured  ;  and  Romance, 
The  Angel-Playmate,  raining  down 
His  golden  influences 
On  all  I  saw,  and  all  I  dreamed  and  did, 


74  ARABIAN  NIGHTS' 

Walked  with  me  arm  in  arm, 

Or  left  me,  as  one  bediademed  with  straws 

And  bits  of  glass,  to  gladden  at  my  heart 

Who  had  the  gift  to  seek  and  feel  and  find 

His  fiery-hearted  presence  everywhere. 

Even  so  dear  Hesper,  bringer  of  all  good  things, 

Sends  the  same  silver  dews 

Of  happiness  down  her  dim,  delighted  skies 

On  some  poor  collier-hamlet — (mound  on  mound 

Of  sifted  squalor  ;  here  a  soot-throated  stalk 

Sullenly  smoking  over  a  row 

Of  flat-faced  hovels  ;  black  in  the  gritty  air 

A  web  of  rails  and  wheels  and  beams ;  with  strings 

Of  hurtling,  tipping  trams) — 

As  on  the  amorous  nightingales 

And  roses  of  Shiraz,  or  the  walls  and  towers 

Of  Samarcand — the  Ineffable — whence  you  espy 

The  splendour  of  Ginnistan's  embattled  spears, 

Like  listed  lightnings. 

Samarcand  ! 
That  name  of  names  !     That  star-vaned  belvedere 
Builded  against  the  Chambers  of  the  South  ! 
That  outpost  on  the  Infinite  ! 

And  behold  ! 
Questing  therefrom,  you  knew  not  what  wild  tide 


ENTERTAINMENTS  75 

Might  overtake  you  :  for  one  fringe, 

One  suburb,  is  stablished  on  firm  earth  ;  but  one 

Floats  founded  vague 

In  lubberlands  delectable — isles  of  palm 

And  lotus,  fortunate  mains,  far-shimmering  seas, 

The  promise  of  wistful  hills — - 

The  shining,  shifting  Sovranties  of  Dream. 


BRIC-A-BRAC 


1877-1888 


'  The  tune  of  the  time.'' — Hamlet,  concerning  Osric 


BALLADE 
OF  A  TOYOKUNI  COLOUR-PRINT 

To  W.  A. 

Was  I  a  Samurai  renowned, 
Two-sworded,  fierce,  immense  of  bow  ? 
A  histrion  angular  and  profound  ? 
A  priest  ?  a  porter  ? — Child,  although 
I  have  forgotten  clean,  I  know 
That  in  the  shade  of  Fujisan, 
What  time  the  cherry-orchards  blow, 
I  loved  you  once  in  old  Japan. 

As  here  you  loiter,  flowing-gowned 

And  hugely  sashed,  with  pins  a-row 

Your  quaint  head  as  with  flamelets  crowned, 

Demure,  inviting — even  so, 

When  merry  maids  in  Miyako 

To  feel  the  sweet  o'  the  year  began, 

And  green  gardens  to  overflow, 

I  loved  you  once  in  old  Japan. 

79 


80  BRIC-A-BRAC 

Clear  shine  the  hills  ;  the  rice-fields  round 
Two  cranes  are  circling  ;  sleepy  and  slow, 
A  blue  canal  the  lake's  blue  bound 
Breaks  at  the  bamboo  bridge  ;  and  lo  ! 
Touched  with  the  sundown's  spirit  and  glow, 
I  see  you  turn,  with  flirted  fan, 
Against  the  plum-tree's  bloomy  snow.  .  .  . 
I  loved  you  once  in  old  Japan  ! 

Envoy 

Dear,  'twas  a  dozen  lives  ago  ; 
But  that  I  was  a  lucky  man 
The  Toyokuni  here  will  show  : 
I  loved  you — once — in  old  Japan. 


BRIC-A-BRAC  81 

BALLADE 

(double   refrain) 
OF   YOUTH   AND   AGE 

I.    M. 

Thomas  Edward  Brown 
(1829-1896) 

Spring  at  her  height  on  a  morn  at  prime, 
Sails  that  laugh  from  a  flying  squall, 
Pomp  of  harmony,  rapture  of  rhyme — 
Youth  is  the  sign  of  them,  one  and  all. 
Winter  sunsets  and  leaves  that  fall, 
An  empty  flagon,  a  folded  page, 
A  tumble-down  wheel,  a  tattered  ball — 
These  are  a  type  of  the  world  of  Age. 

Bells  that  clash  in  a  gaudy  chime, 

Swords  that  clatter  in  onsets  tall, 

The  words  that  ring  and  the  fames  that  climb — 

Youth  is  the  sign  of  them,  one  and  all. 

Hymnals  old  in  a  dusty  stall, 

A  bald,  blind  bird  in  a  crazy  cage, 

The  scene  of  a  faded  festival — 

These  are  a  type  of  the  world  of  Age. 

F 


82  BRIC-A-BRAC 

Hours  that  strut  as  the  heirs  of  time 


Deeds  whose  rumour's  a  clarion-call, 
Songs  where  the  singers  their  souls  sublime- 
Youth  is  the  sign  of  them,  one  and  all. 
A  staff  that  rests  in  a  nook  of  wall, 
A  reeling  battle,  a  rusted  gage, 
The  chant  of  a  nearing  funeral — 
These  are  a  type  of  the  world  of  Age. 

Envoy 

Struggle  and  turmoil,  revel  and  brawl — 
Youth  is  the  sign  of  them,  one  and  all. 
A  smouldering  hearth  and  a  silent  stage — 
These  are  a  type  of  the  world  of  Age. 


BRIC-A-BRAC  83 


BALLADE 

(DOUBLE    REFRAIN") 

OF  MIDSUMMER  DAYS  AND  NIGHTS 

To  W.  H. 

With  a  ripple  of  leaves  and  a  tinkle  of  streams 
The  full  world  rolls  in  a  rhythm  of  praise, 
And  the  winds  are  one  with  the  clouds  and  beams- 
Midsummer  days  !  Midsummer  davs  ! 
The  dusk  grows  vast ;  in  a  purple  haze, 
While  the  West  from  a  rapture  of  sunset  rights, 
Faint  stars  their  exquisite  lamps  upraise — 
Midsummer  nights  !     O  midsummer  nights  ! 

The  wood's  green  heart  is  a  nest  of  dreams, 
The  lush  grass  thickens  and  springs  and  sways, 
The  rathe  wheat  rustles,  the  landscape  gleams — 
Midsummer  days  !  Midsummer  days  ! 
In  the  stilly  fields,  in  the  stilly  ways, 
All  secret  shadows  and  mystic  lights, 
Late  lovers  murmur  and  linger  and  gaze — 
Midsummer  nights  !  O  midsummer  nights  ! 


84  BRIC-A-BRAC 

There 's  a  music  of  bells  from  the  trampling  teams, 
Wild  skylarks  hover,  the  gorses  blaze, 
The  rich,  ripe  rose  as  with  incense  steams — 
Midsummer  days  !  Midsummer  days  ! 
A  soul  from  the  honeysuckle  strays, 
And  the  nightingale  as  from  prophet  heights 
Sings  to  the  Earth  of  her  million  Mays — 
Midsummer  nights  !  O  midsummer  nights  ! 

Envoy 

And   it's   O,   for  my   dear   and    the    charm    that 

stays — 
Midsummer  days  !   Midsummer  days  ! 
It 's  O,  for  my  Love  and  the  dark  that  plights — 
Midsummer  nights  !  O  midsummer  nights  ! 


BRIC-A-BRAC  85 

BALLADE 
OF  DEAD  ACTORS 

I.    M. 

Edward  John  Henley 
(1861-1898) 

Where  are  the  passions  they  essayed, 
And  where  the  tears  they  made  to  flow  ? 
Where  the  wild  humours  they  portrayed 
For  laughing  worlds  to  see  and  know  ? 
Othello's  wrath  and  Juliet's  woe  ? 
Sir  Peter's  whims  and  Timon's  gall  ? 
And  Millamant  and  Romeo  ? 
Into  the  night  go  one  and  all. 

Where  are  the  braveries,  fresh  or  frayed  ? 
The  plumes,  the  armours — friend  and  foe? 
The  cloth  of  gold,  the  rare  brocade, 
The  mantles  glittering  to  and  fro? 
The  pomp,  the  pride,  the  royal  show  ? 
The  cries  of  war  and  festival  ? 
The  youth,  the  grace,  the  charm,  the  glow  ? 
Into  the  night  go  one  and  all. 


86  BRIC-A-BRAC 

The  curtain  falls,  the  play  is  played  : 
The  Beggar  packs  beside  the  Beau ; 
The  Monarch  troops,  and  troops  the  Maid  ; 
The  Thunder  huddles  with  the  Snow. 
Where  are  the  revellers  high  and  low  ? 
The  clashing  swords  ?     The  lover's  call  ? 
The  dancers  gleaming  row  on  row  ? 
Into  the  night  go  one  and  all. 

Envoy 

Prince,  in  one  common  overthrow 
The  Hero  tumbles  with  the  Thrall  : 
As  dust  that  drives,  as  straws  that  blow, 
Into  the  night  go  one  and  all. 


BRIC-A-BRAC  87 


BALLADE 

MADE  IN  THE  HOT  WEATHER 

To  C.  M. 

Fountains  that  frisk  and  sprinkle 
The  moss  they  overspill  ; 
Pools  that  the  breezes  crinkle  ; 
The  wheel  beside  the  mill, 
With  its  wet,  weedy  frill ; 
Wind-shadows  in  the  wheat ; 
A  water-cart  in  the  street ; 
The  fringe  of  foam  that  girds 
An  islet's  ferneries ; 
A  green  sky's  minor  thirds — 
To  live,  I  think  of  these  ! 

Of  ice  and  glass  the  tinkle, 
Pellucid,  silver-shrill ; 
Peaches  without  a  wrinkle ; 
Cherries  and  snow  at  will, 
From  china  bowls  that  fill 
The  senses  with  a  sweet 


88  BRIC-A-BRAC 

Incuriousness  of  heat ; 
A  melon's  dripping  sherds  ; 
Cream-clotted  strawberries ; 
Dusk  dairies  set  with  curds — 
To  live,  I  think  of  these  ! 

Vale-lily  and  periwinkle  ; 

Wet  stone-crop  on  the  sill ; 

The  look  of  leaves  a-twinkle 

With  windlets  clear  and  still ; 

The  feel  of  a  forest  rill 

That  wimples  fresh  and  fleet 

About  one's  naked  feet ; 

The  muzzles  of  drinking  herds  ; 

Lush  flags  and  bulrushes  ; 

The  chirp  of  rain-bound  birds — ■ 

To  live,  I  think  of  these  ! 


Envoy 

Dark  aisles,  new  packs  of  cards, 
Mermaidens'  tails,  cool  swards, 
Dawn  dews  and  starlit  seas, 
White  marbles,  whiter  words — 
To  live,  I  think  of  these  ! 


BRIC-A-BRAC  89 


BALLADE  OF  TRUISMS 

Gold  or  silver,  every  day, 

Dies  to  gray. 
There  are  knots  in  every  skein. 
Hours  of  work  and  hours  of  play 

Fade  away 
Into  one  immense  Inane. 
Shadow  and  substance,  chaff  and  grain, 

Are  as  vain 
As  the  foam  or  as  the  spray. 
Life  goes  crooning,  faint  and  fain, 

One  refrain:  — 
'  If  it  could  be  always  May  ! ' 

Though  the  earth  be  green  and  gay, 

Though,  they  say, 

Man  the  cup  of  heaven  may  drain  ; 

Though,  his  little  world  to  sway, 

He  display 

Hoard  on  hoard  of  pith  and  brain  : 

Autumn  brings  a  mist  and  rain 

That  constrain 


9o  BRIC-A-BRAC 

Him  and  his  to  know  decay, 

Where  undimmed  the  lights  that  wane 

Would  remain, 
If  it  could  be  always  May. 

Tea,  alas,  must  turn  to  Nay, 

Flesh  to  clay. 
Chance  and  Time  are  ever  twain. 
Men  may  scoff,  and  men  may  pray, 

But  they  pay 
Every  pleasure  with  a  pain. 
Life  may  soar,  and  Fortune  deign 

To  explain 
Where  her  prizes  hide  and  stay  ; 
But  we  lack  the  lusty  train 

We  should  gain, 
If  it  could  be  always  May. 

Envoy 

Time,  the  pedagogue,  his  cane 

Might  retain, 

But  his  charges  all  would  stray 

Truanting  in  every  lane — 

Jack  with  Jane — 

If  it  could  be  always  May. 


BRIC-A-BRAC  91 


DOUBLE   BALLADE 

OF  LIFE  AND  FATE 

Fools  may  pine,  and  sots  may  swill, 
Cynics  gibe,  and  prophets  rail, 
Moralists  may  scourge  and  drill, 
Preachers  prose,  and  fainthearts  quail. 
Let  them  whine,  or  threat,  or  wail ! 
Till  the  touch  of  Circumstance 
Down  to  darkness  sink  the  scale, 
Fate 's  a  fiddler,  Life 's  a  dance. 

What  if  skies  be  wan  and  chill  ? 
What  if  winds  be  harsh  and  stale  ? 
Presently  the  east  will  thrill, 
And  the  sad  and  shrunken  sail, 
Bellying  with  a  kindly  gale, 
Bear  you  sunwards,  while  your  chance 
Sends  you  back  the  hopeful  hail  : — 
'  Fate  's  a  fiddler,  Life  's  a  dance.' 


92  BRIC-A-BRAC 

Idle  shot  or  coming  bill, 
Hapless  love  or  broken  bail, 
Gulp  it  (never  chew  your  pill  !), 
And,  if  Burgundy  should  fail, 
Try  the  humbler  pot  of  ale  ! 
Over  all  is  heaven's  expanse. 
Gold's  to  find  among  the  shale. 
Fate  's  a  fiddler,  Life  's  a  dance. 


Dull  Sir  Joskin  sleeps  his  fill, 
Good  Sir  Galahad  seeks  the  Grail, 
Proud  Sir  Pertinax  flaunts  his  frill, 
Hard  Sir  ^ger  dints  his  mail ; 
And  the  while  by  hill  and  dale 
Tristram's  braveries  gleam  and  glance, 
And  his  blithe  horn  tells  its  tale : — 
'  Fate 's  a  fiddler,  Life  's  a  dance.' 

Araminta  's  grand  and  shrill, 
Delia  's  passionate  and  frail, 
Doris  drives  an  earnest  quill, 
Athanasia  takes  the  veil : 
Wiser  Phyllis  o'er  her  pail, 
At  the  heart  of  all  romance 


BRIC-A-BRAC  93 

Reading,  sings  to  Strephon's  flail : — 
'  Fate  's  a  fiddler,  Life  's  a  dance.* 


Every  Jack  must  have  his  Jill 
(Even  Johnson  had  his  Thrale  !)  : 
Forward,  couples — with  a  will  ! 
This,  the  world,  is  not  a  jail. 
Hear  the  music,  sprat  and  whale  ! 
Hands  across,  retire,  advance  ! 
Though  the  doomsman's  on  your  trail, 
Fate  's  a  fiddler,  Life  's  a  dance. 

Envoy 

Boys  and  girls,  at  slug  and  snail 
And  their  kindred  look  askance. 
Pay  your  footing  on  the  nail : 
Fate 's  a  fiddler,  Life  's  a  dance. 


94  BRIC-A-BRAC 


DOUBLE  BALLADE 
OF  THE  NOTHINGNESS  OF  THINGS 

The  big  teetotum  twirls, 
And  epochs  wax  and  wane 
As  chance  subsides  or  swirls  ; 
But  of  the  loss  and  gain 
The  sum  is  always  plain. 
Read  on  the  mighty  pall, 
The  weed  of  funeral 
That  covers  praise  and  blame, 
The  -isms  and  the  -anities, 
Magnificence  and  shame : — 
'  O  Vanity  of  Vanities  ! ' 

The  Fates  are  subtile  girls  ! 
They  give  us  chaff  for  grain. 
And  Time,  the  Thunderer,  hurls, 
Like  bolted  death,  disdain 
At  all  that  heart  and  brain 
Conceive,  or  great  or  small, 


BRIC-A-BRAC  95 

Upon  this  earthly  ball. 
Would  you  be  knight  and  dame  ? 
Or  woo  the  sweet  humanities  ? 
Or  illustrate  a  name? 

0  Vanity  of  Vanities  ! 

We  sound  the  sea  for  pearls, 
Or  drown  them  in  a  drain  ; 
We  flute  it  with  the  merles, 
Or  tug  and  sweat  and  strain  ; 
We  grovel,  or  we  reign  ; 
We  saunter,  or  we  brawl ; 
We  answer,  or  we  call ; 
We  search  the  stars  for  Fame, 
Or  sink  her  subterranities  ; 
The  legend's  still  the  same  : — 

1  O  Vanity  of  Vanities  ! ' 

Here  at  the  wine  one  birls, 
There  some  one  clanks  a  chain. 
The  flag  that  this  man  furls 
That  man  to  float  is  fain. 
Pleasure  gives  place  to  pain  : 
These  in  the  kennel  crawl, 


96  BRIC-A-BRAC 

While  others  take  the  wall. 
She  has  a  glorious  aim, 
He  lives  for  the  inanities. 
What  comes  of  every  claim  ? 
O  Vanity  of  Vanities  ! 

Alike  are  clods  and  earls. 
For  sot,  and  seer,  and  swain, 
For  emperors  and  for  churls, 
For  antidote  and  bane, 
There  is  but  one  refrain  : 
But  one  for  king  and  thrall, 
For  David  and  for  Saul, 
For  fleet  of  foot  and  lame, 
For  pieties  and  profanities, 
The  picture  and  the  frame  : — 
*  O  Vanity  of  Vanities  ! ' 

Life  is  a  smoke  that  curls — 

Curls  in  a  flickering  skein, 

That  winds  and  whisks  and  whirls, 

A  figment  thin  and  vain, 

Into  the  vast  Inane. 

One  end  for  hut  and  hall ! 


BRIC-A-BRAC 

One  end  for  cell  and  stall  ! 
Burned  in  one  common  flame 
Are  wisdoms  and  insanities. 
For  this  alone  we  came  : — 

*  O  Vanity  of  Vanities  ! ' 

Envoy 

Prince,  pride  must  have  a  fall. 
What  is  the  worth  of  all 
Your  state's  supreme  urbanities  ? 
Bad  at  the  best's  the  game. 
Well  might  the  Sage  exclaim  : — 

*  O  Vanity  of  Vanities  ! ' 


97 


98  BRIC-A-BRAC 


AT  QUEENSFERRY 

To  W.  G.  S. 

The  blackbird  sang,  the  skies  were  clear  and  clean 
We  bowled  along  a  road  that  curved  a  spine 
Superbly  sinuous  and  serpentine 
Thro'  silent  symphonies  of  summer  green. 
Sudden  the  Forth  came  on  us — sad  of  mien, 
No  cloud  to  colour  it,  no  breeze  to  line  : 
A  sheet  of  dark,  dull  glass,  without  a  sign 
Of  life  or  death,  two  spits  of  sand  between. 
Water  and  sky  merged  blank  in  mist  together, 
The  Fort  loomed  spectral,  and  the  Guardship's  spars 
Traced  vague,   black  shadows  on   the   shimmery 

glaze  : 
We  felt  the  dim,  strange  years,  the  grey,  strange 

weather, 
The  still,  strange  land,  unvexed  of  sun  or  stars, 
Where  Lancelot  rides  clanking  thro'  the  haze. 


BRIC-A-BRAC  99 


ORIENTJLE 

She's  an  enchanting  little  Israelite, 

A  world  of  hidden  dimples  ! — Dusky-eyed, 

A  starry-glancing  daughter  of  the  Bride, 

With  hair  escaped  from  some  Arabian  Night, 

Her  lip  is  red,  her  cheek  is  golden-white, 

Her  nose  a  scimitar  ;  and,  set  aside 

The  bamboo  hat  she  cocks  with  so  much  pride, 

Her  dress  a  dream  of  daintiness  and  delight. 

And  when  she  passes  with  the  dreadful  boys 

And  romping  girls,  the  cockneys  loud  and  crude, 

My  thought,  to  the  Minories  tied  yet  moved  to 

range 
The  Land  o'  the  Sun,  commingles  with  the  noise 
Of  magian  drums  and  scents  of  sandalwood 
A  touch  Sidonian — modern — taking — strange  ! 


ioo  BRIC-A-BRAC 


IN  FISHERROW 

A  hard  north-easter  fifty  winters  long 
Has  bronzed  and  shrivelled  sere  her  face  and  neck ; 
Her  locks  are  wild  and  grey,  her  teeth  a  wreck  ; 
Her  foot  is  vast,  her  bowed  leg  spare  and  strong. 
A  wide  blue  cloak,  a  squat  and  sturdy  throng 
Of  curt  blue  coats,  a  mutch  without  a  speck, 
A  white  vest  broidered  black,  her  person  deck, 
Nor  seems  their  picked,  stern,  old-world  quaint- 

ness  wrong. 
Her  great  creel  forehead-slung,  she  wanders  nigh, 
Easing  the  heavy  strap  with  gnarled,  brown  fingers, 
The  spirit  of  traffic  watchful  in  her  eye, 
Ever  and  anon  imploring  you  to  buy, 
As  looking  down  the  street  she  onward  lingers, 
Reproachful,  with  a  strange  and  doleful  cry. 


BRIC-A-BRAC  ioi 


BACK-VIEW 

To  D.  F. 

I  watched  you  saunter  down  the  sand  : 
Serene  and  large,  the  golden  weather 
Flowed  radiant  round  your  peacock  feather, 
And  glistered  from  your  jewelled  hand. 
Your  tawny  hair,  turned  strand  on  strand 
And  bound  with  blue  ribands  together, 
Streaked  the  rough  tartan,  green  like  heather. 
That  round  your  lissome  shoulder  spanned. 
Your  grace  was  quick  my  sense  to  seize  : 
The  quaint  looped  hat,  the  twisted  tresses, 
The  close-drawn  scarf,  and  under  these 
The  flowing,  flapping  draperies — 
My  thought  an  outline  still  caresses, 
Enchanting,  comic,  Japanese  ! 


102  BRIC-A-BRAC 


CROQUIS 

To  G.  W. 

The  beach  was  crowded.     Pausing  now  and  then, 

He  groped  and  fiddled  doggedly  along, 

His  worn  face  glaring  on  the  thoughtless  throng 

The  stony  peevishness  of  sightless  men. 

He  seemed  scarce  older  than  his  clothes.     Again, 

Grotesquing  thinly  many  an  old  sweet  song, 

So  cracked  his  fiddle,  his  hand  so  frail  and  wrong, 

You  hardly  could  distinguish  one  in  ten. 

He  stopped  at  last,  and  sat  him  on  the  sand, 

And,  grasping  wearily  his  bread-winner, 

Stared  dim  towards  the  blue  immensity, 

Then  leaned  his  head  upon  his  poor  old  hand. 

He  may  have  slept  :  he  did  not  speak  nor  stir  : 

His  gesture  spoke  a  vast  despondency. 


BRIC-A-BRAC  103 


ATTADALE  WEST  HIGHLANDS 

To  A.  J. 

A  black  and  glassy  float,  opaque  and  still, 
The  loch,  at  furthest  ebb  supine  in  sleep, 
Reversing,  mirrored  in  its  luminous  deep 
The  calm  grey  skies  ;  the  solemn  spurs  of  hill ; 
Heather,  and  corn,  and  wisps  of  loitering  haze ; 
The  wee   white   cots,  black-hatted,   plumed  with 

smoke  ; 
The  braes  beyond — and  when  the  ripple  awoke, 
They  wavered  with  the  jarred  and  wavering  glaze. 
The  air  was  hushed  and  dreamy.     Evermore 
A  noise  of  running  water  whispered  near. 
A  straggling  crow  called  high  and  thin.     A  bird 
Trilled  from  the  birch-leaves.     Round  the  shingled 

shore, 
Yellow  with  weed,  there  wandered,  vague  and  clear, 
Strange  vowels,  mysterious  gutturals,  idly  heard. 


io4  BRIC-A-BRAC 


FROM  A  WINDOW  IN  PRINCES  STREET 

to  M.  M.  M'B. 

Above  the  Crags  that  fade  and  gloom 
Starts  the  bare  knee  of  Arthur's  Seat ; 
Ridged  high  against  the  evening  bloom, 
The  Old  Town  rises,  street  on  street ; 
With  lamps  bejewelled,  straight  ahead, 
Like  rampired  walls  the  houses  lean, 
All  spired  and  domed  and  turreted, 
Sheer  to  the  valley's  darkling  green  ; 
Ranged  in  mysterious  disarray, 
The  Castle,  menacing  and  austere, 
Looms  through  the  lingering  last  of  day  ; 
And  in  the  silver  dusk  you  hear, 
Reverberated  from  crag  and  scar, 
Bold  bugles  blowing  points  of  war. 


BRIC-A-BRAC  105 


IN  THE  DIALS 

To  Garry owen  upon  an  organ  ground 
Two  girls  are  jigging.     Riotously  they  trip, 
With  eyes  aflame,  quick  bosoms,  hand  on  hip, 
As  in  the  tumult  of  a  witches'  round. 
Youngsters  and  youngsters  round  them  prance  and 

bound. 
Two  solemn  babes  twirl  ponderously,  and  skip. 
The  artist's  teeth  gleam  from  his  bearded  lip. 
High  from  the  kennel  howls  a  tortured  hound. 
The  music  reels  and  hurtles,  and  the  night 
Is  full  of  stinks  and  cries  ;  a  naphtha-light 
Flares  from  a  barrow  ;  battered  and  obtused 
With  vices,  wrinkles,  life  and  work  and  rags, 
Each  with  her  inch  of  clay,  two  loitering  hags 
Look  on  dispassionate — critical—something  'mused 


io6  BRIC-A-BRAC 


The  gods  are  dead  ?     Perhaps  they  are  !     Who 

knows  ? 
Living  at  least  in  Lempriere  undeleted, 
The  wise,  the  fair,  the  awful,  the  jocose, 
Are  one  and  all,  I  like  to  think,  retreated 
In  some  still  land  of  lilacs  and  the  rose. 

Once  high  they  sat,  and  high  o'er  earthly  shows 
With  sacrificial  dance  and  song  were  greeted. 
Once  .   .  .  long  ago.     But  now,  the  story  goes, 

The  gods  are  dead. 

It  must  be  true.     The  world,  a  world  of  prose, 
Full-crammed  with  facts,  in  science  swathed  and 

sheeted, 
Nods  in  a  stertorous  after-dinner  doze  ! 
Plangent  and  sad,  in  every  wind  that  blows 
Who  will  may  hear  the  sorry  words  repeated : — 

'  The  Gods  are  Dead  1  * 


BRIC-A-BRAC  107 


To  F.  W. 

Let  us  be  drunk,  and  for  a  while  forget, 

Forget,  and,  ceasing  even  from  regret, 

Live  without  reason  and  despite  of  rhyme, 

As  in  a  dream  preposterous  and  sublime, 

Where  place  and  hour  and  means  for  once  are  met. 

Where  is  the  use  of  effort  ?     Love  and  debt 

And  disappointment  have  us  in  a  net. 

Let  us  break  out,  and  taste  the  morning  prime  .  .  . 

Let  us  be  drunk. 

In  vain  our  little  hour  we  strut  and  fret, 
And  mouth  our  wretched  parts  as  for  a  bet : 
We  cannot  please  the  tragicaster  Time. 
To  gain  the  crystal  sphere,  the  silver  clime, 
Where  Sympathy  sits  dimpling  on  us  yet, 
Let  us  be  drunk  ! 


io8  BRIC-A-BRAC 


When  you  are  old,  and  I  am  passed  away — 
Passed,  and  your  face,  your  golden  face,  is  gray — 
I  think,  whate'er  the  end,  this  dream  of  mine, 
Comforting  you,  a  friendly  star  will  shine 
Down  the  dim  slope  where  still  you  stumble  and 
stray. 

So  may  it  be  :  that  so  dead  Yesterday, 
No  sad-eyed  ghost  but  generous  and  gay, 
May  serve  you  memories  like  almighty  wine, 

When  you  are  old  ! 

Dear  Heart,  it  shall  be  so.     Under  the  sway 

Of  death  the  past's  enormous  disarray 

Lies  hushed  and  dark.     Yet  though  there  come  no 

sign, 
Live  on  well  pleased  :  immortal  and  divine 
Love  shall  still  tend  you,  as  God's  angels  may, 

When  you  are  old. 


BRIC-A-BRAC  109 


Beside  the  idle  summer  sea 
And  in  the  vacant  summer  days, 
Light  Love  came  fluting  down  the  ways, 
Where  you  were  loitering  with  me. 

Who  has  not  welcomed,  even  as  we, 
That  jocund  minstrel  and  his  lays 
Beside  the  idle  summer  sea 
And  in  the  vacant  summer  days? 

We  listened,  we  were  fancy-free  ; 
And  lo  !  in  terror  and  amaze 
We  stood  alone — alone  at  gaze 
With  an  implacable  memory 
Beside  the  idle  summer  sea. 


no  BRIC-A-BRAC 


I.  M. 

R.  G.  C.  B. 

1878 

The  ways  of  Death  are  soothing  and  serene, 
And  all  the  words  of  Death  are  grave  and  sweet. 
From  camp  and  church,  the  fireside  and  the  street, 
She  beckons  forth — and  strife  and  song  have  been. 

A  summer  night  descending  cool  and  green 
And  dark  on  daytime's  dust  and  stress  and  heat, 
The  ways  of  Death  are  soothing  and  serene, 
And  all  the  words  of  Death  are  grave  and  sweet. 

O  glad  and  sorrowful,  with  triumphant  mien 

And  radiant  faces  look  upon,  and  greet 

This  last  of  all  your  lovers,  and  to  meet 

Her  kiss,  the  Comforter's,  your  spirit  lean.  .  .  . 

The  ways  of  Death  are  soothing  and  serene. 


BRIC-A-BRAC  in 


We  shall  surely  die  : 
Must  we  needs  grow  old  ? 
Grow  old  and  cold, 
And  we  know  not  why  ? 

O,  the  By-and-By, 
And  the  tale  that 's  told  ! 
We  shall  surely  die  : 
Must  we  needs  grow  old  ? 

Grow  old  and  sigh, 
Grudge  and  withhold, 
Resent  and  scold  ?  .  .  . 
Not  you  and  I  ? 
We  shall  surely  die  ! 


ii2  BRIC-A-BRAC 


What  is  to  come  we  know  not.     But  we  know 
That  what  has  been  was  good — was  good  to  show, 
Better  to  hide,  and  best  of  all  to  bear. 
We  are  the  masters  of  the  days  that  were: 
We  have   lived,  we  have  loved,  we  have  suffered 
.  .  .  even  so. 

Shall  we  not  take  the  ebb  who  had  the  flow? 
Life  was  our  friend.     Now,  if  it  be  our  foe — 
Dear,  though  it  spoil  and  break  us  ! — need  we  care 

What  is  to  come  ? 

Let  the  great  winds  their  worst  and  wildest  blow, 
Or  the  gold  weather  round  us  mellow  slow  : 
We  have  fulfilled  ourselves,  and  we  can  dare 
And  we  can  conquer,  though  we  may  not  share 
In  the  rich  quiet  of  the  afterglow 

What  is  to  come. 


ECHOES 


1872-1889 


H 


Aqui  est  a  encerrada  el  alma  del  licenciado  Pedro  Garcias. 

Gil   Blas  AU  LECTEUR. 


TO  MY  MOTHER 

Chiming  a  dream  by  the  way 

With  ocean's  rapture  and  roar, 
I  met  a  maiden  to-day 

Walking  alone  on  the  shore : 
Walking  in  maiden  wise, 

Modest  and  kind  and  fair, 
The  freshness  of  spring  in  her  eyes 

And  the  fulness  of  spring  in  her  hair. 

Cloud-shadow  and  scudding  sun-burst 

Were  swift  on  the  floor  of  the  sea, 
And  a  mad  wind  was  romping  its  worst, 

But  what  was  their  magic  to  me  ? 
Or  the  charm  of  the  midsummer  skies  ? 

I  only  saw  she  was  there, 
A  dream  of  the  sea  in  her  eyes 

And  the  kiss  of  the  sea  in  her  hair. 


u6  ECHOES 

I  watched  her  vanish  in  space ; 

She  came  where  I  walked  no  more  ; 
But  something  had  passed  of  her  grace 

To  the  spell  of  the  wave  and  the  shore  ; 
And  now,  as  the  glad  stars  rise, 

She  comes  to  me,  rosy  and  rare, 
The  delight  of  the  wind  in  her  eyes 

And  the  hand  of  the  wind  in  her  hair. 

1872 


ECHOES  117 


11 

Life  is  bitter.     All  the  faces  of  the  years, 
Young  and  old,  are  gray  with  travail   and   with 
tears. 
Must  we  only  wake  to  toil,  to  tire,  to  weep  ? 
In  the  sun,  among  the  leaves,  upon  the  flowers, 
Slumber  stills  to  dreamy  death  the  heavy  hours  .  .  . 
Let  me  sleep. 

Riches  won  but  mock  the  old,  unable  years  ; 
Fame 's  a  pearl  that  hides  beneath  a  sea  of  tears  ; 

Love  must  wither,  or  must  live  alone  and  weep. 
In  the   sunshine,  through  the  leaves,   across  the 

flowers, 
While  we  slumber,  death  approaches  through  the 
hours  .  .  . 

Let  me  sleep. 

1872 


n8  ECHOES 


in 


O,  gather  me  the  rose,  the  rose, 
While  yet  in  flower  we  find  it, 

For  summer  smiles,  but  summer  goes, 
And  winter  waits  behind  it ! 

For  with  the  dream  foregone,  foregone, 

The  deed  forborne  for  ever, 
The  worm,  regret,  will  canker  on, 

And  Time  will  turn  him  never. 

So  well  it  were  to  love,  my  love, 

And  cheat  of  any  laughter 
The  fate  beneath  us  and  above, 

The  dark  before  and  after. 

The  myrtle  and  the  rose,  the  rose, 
The  sunshine  and  the  swallow, 

The  dream  that  comes,  the  wish  that  goes, 
The  memories  that  follow ! 

1874 


ECHOES 


IV 

I.     M. 

R.   T.  HAMILTON   BRUCE 

( i 846-1 899) 

Out  of  the  night  that  covers  me, 
Black  as  the  Pit  from  pole  to  pole, 

I  thank  whatever  gods  may  be 
For  my  unconquerable  soul. 

In  the  fell  clutch  of  circumstance 
I  have  not  winced  nor  cried  aloud. 

Under  the  bludgeonings  of  chance 
My  head  is  bloody,  but  unbowed. 

Beyond  this  place  of  wrath  and  tears 
Looms  but  the  Horror  of  the  shade, 

And  yet  the  menace  of  the  years 
Finds,  and  shall  find,  me  unafraid. 

It  matters  not  how  strait  the  gate, 

How  charged  with  punishments  the  scroll, 

I  am  the  master  of  my  fate  : 

I  am  the  captain  of  my  soul. 

1875 


i20  ECHOES 


I  am  the  Reaper. 

All  things  with  heedful  hook 

Silent  I  gather. 

Pale  roses  touched  with  the  spring, 

Tall  corn  in  summer, 

Fruits   rich   with   autumn,   and  frail  winter 

blossoms — 
Reaping,  still  reaping — 
All  things  with  heedful  hook 
Timely  I  gather. 

I  am  the  Sower. 
All  the  unbodied  life 
Runs  through  my  seed-sheet. 
Atom  with  atom  wed, 
Each  quickening  the  other, 
Fall  through  my  hands,  ever  changing,  still 
changeless. 


ECHOES  121 

Ceaselessly  sowing, 
Life,  incorruptible  life, 
Flows  from  my  seed-sheet. 

Maker  and  breaker, 

I  am  the  ebb  and  the  flood, 

Here  and  Hereafter. 

Sped  through  the  tangle  and  coil 

Of  infinite  nature, 

Viewless  and  soundless  I  fashion  all  being. 

Taker  and  giver, 

I  am  the  womb  and  the  grave, 

The  Now  and  the  Ever. 

1875 


122  ECHOES 


VI 


Praise  the  generous  gods  for  giving 
In  a  world  of  wrath  and  strife, 

With  a  little  time  for  living, 
Unto  all  the  joy  of  life. 

At  whatever  source  we  drink  it, 

Art  or  love  or  faith  or  wine, 
In  whatever  terms  we  think  it, 

It  is  common  and  divine. 

Praise  the  high  gods,  for  in  giving 

This  to  man,  and  this  alone, 
They  have  made  his  chance  of  living 

Shine  the  equal  of  their  own. 

1875 


ECHOES  123 


VII 


Fill  a  glass  with  golden  wine, 

And  the  while  your  lips  are  wet 
Set  their  perfume  unto  mine, 

And  forget, 
Every  kiss  we  take  and  give 
Leaves  us  less  of  life  to  live. 

Yet  again  !     Your  whim  and  mine 

In  a  happy  while  have  met. 
All  your  sweets  to  me  resign, 

Nor  regret 
That  we  press  with  every  breath, 
Sighed  or  singing,  nearer  death. 


1875 


124  ECHOES 


VIII 

We'll  go  no  more  a-roving  by  the  light  of  the 

moon. 
November  glooms  are  barren  beside  the  dusk  of 

June. 
The  summer  flowers  are  faded,  the  summer  thoughts 

are  sere. 
We'll  go  no  more  a-roving,  lest  worse  befall,  my 

dear. 

We'll  go  no  more  a-roving  by  the  light  of  the 

moon. 
The  song  we  sang  rings  hollow,  and  heavy  runs 

the  tune. 
Glad  ways  and  words  remembered  would  shame 

the  wretched  year. 
We'll  go  no  more  a-roving,  nor  dream  we  did, 

my  dear. 


ECHOES  125 

We'll  go  no  more  a-roving  by  the  light  of  the 

moon. 
If  yet  we  walk  together,  we  need  not  shun  the 

noon. 
No  sweet  thing  left  to  savour,  no  sad  thing  left  to 

fear, 
We  '11  go  no  more  a-roving,  but  weep  at  home,  my 

dear. 

1875 


i26  ECHOES 


IX 

<To  W.  R. 


Madam  Life's  a  piece  in  bloom 
Death  goes  dogging  everywhere : 

She  's  the  tenant  of  the  room, 
He  's  the  ruffian  on  the  stair. 

You  shall  see  her  as  a  friend, 

You  shall  bilk  him  once  and  twice  ; 

But  he  '11  trap  you  in  the  end, 

And  he  '11  stick  you  for  her  price. 

With  his  kneebones  at  your  chest, 
And  his  knuckles  in  your  throat, 

You  would  reason — plead — protest ! 
Clutching  at  her  petticoat ; 

But  she  's  heard  it  all  before, 

Well  she  knows  you  've  had  your  fun, 

Gingerly  she  gains  the  door, 

And  your  little  job  is  done. 

.877 


ECHOES  127 


The  sea  is  full  of  wandering  foam, 

The  sky  of  driving  cloud  ; 
My  restless  thoughts  among  them  roam  .  .  . 

The  night  is  dark  and  loud. 

Where  are  the  hours  that  came  to  me 

So  beautiful  and  bright  ? 
A  wild  wind  shakes  the  wilder  sea  .  .  . 

O,  dark  and  loud  's  the  night  ! 

1876 


;28  ECHOES 


XI 


To  W.  R. 

Thick  is  the  darkness — 
Sunward,  O,  sunward  ! 

Rough  is  the  highway — 
Onward,  still  onward ! 

Dawn  harbours  surely 
East  of  the  shadows. 

Facing  us  somewhere 

Spread  the  sweet  meadows. 

Upward  and  forward  ! 

Time  will  restore  us  : 
Light  is  above  us, 

Rest  is  before  us. 


1876 


ECHOES  I29 


xn 


To  me  at  my  fifth-floor  window 
The  chimney-pots  in  rows 

Are  sets  of  pipes  pandean 
For  every  wind  that  blows  ; 

And  the  smoke  that  whirls  and  eddies 
In  a  thousand  times  and  keys 

Is  really  a  visible  music 
Set  to  my  reveries. 

O  monstrous  pipes,  melodious 
With  fitful  tune  and  dream, 

The  clouds  are  your  only  audience, 
Her  thought  is  your  only  theme  ! 


1875 


i3o  ECHOES 


XIII 


Bring  her  again,  O  western  wind, 

Over  the  western  sea  : 
Gentle  and  good  and  fair  and  kind, 

Bring  her  again  to  me  ! 

Not  that  her  fancy  holds  me  dear, 
Not  that  a  hope  may  be  : 

Only  that  I  may  know  her  near, 
Wind  of  the  western  sea. 


1875 


ECHOES  131 


XIV 


The  wan  sun  westers,  faint  and  slow  ; 
The  eastern  distance  glimmers  gray  ; 
An  eerie  haze  comes  creeping  low 
Across  the  little,  lonely  bay  ; 
And  from  the  sky-line  far  away 
About  the  quiet  heaven  are  spread 
Mysterious  hints  of  dying  day, 
Thin,  delicate  dreams  of  green  and  red. 

And  weak,  reluctant  surges  lap 

And  rustle  round  and  down  the  strand. 

No  other  sound  ...  If  it  should  hap, 

The  ship  that  sails  from  fairy-land  ! 

The  silken  shrouds  with  spells  are  manned, 

The  hull  is  magically  scrolled, 

The  squat  mast  lives,  and  in  the  sand 

The  gold  prow-griffin  claws  a  hold. 


I32  ECHOES 

It  steals  to  seaward  silently  ; 

Strange  fish-folk  follow  thro'  the  gloom  ; 

Great  wings  flap  overhead  ;  I  see 

The  Castle  of  the  Drowsy  Doom 

Vague  thro'  the  changeless  twilight  loom, 

Enchanted,  hushed.     And  ever  there 

She  slumbers  in  eternal  bloom, 

Her  cushions  hid  with  golden  hair. 

1875 


ECHOES  133 


xv 


There  is  a  wheel  inside  my  head 

Of  wantonness  and  wine, 

An  old,  cracked  fiddle  is  begging  without, 
But  the  wind  with  scents  of  the  sea  is  fed, 

And  the  sun  seems  glad  to  shine. 

The  sun  and  the  wind  are  akin  to  you, 

As  you  are  akin  to  June. 

But  the  fiddle ! ...  It  giggles  and  twitters  about, 
And,  love  and  laughter  !  who  gave  him  the  cue  ? — 

He 's  playing  your  favourite  tune. 

1875 


i34  ECHOES 


XVI 

While  the  west  is  paling 

Starshine  is  begun. 
While  the  dusk  is  failing 

Glimmers  up  the  sun. 

So,  till  darkness  cover 
Life's  retreating  gleam. 

Lover  follows  lover, 

Dream  succeeds  to  dream. 

Stoop  to  my  endeavour, 

O  my  love,  and  be 
Only  and  for  ever 

Sun  and  stars  to  me. 


1876 


ECHOES  135 


XVII 


The  sands  are  alive  with  sunshine, 
The  bathers  lounge  and  throng, 

And  out  in  the  bay  a  bugle 
Is  lilting  a  gallant  song. 

The  clouds  go  racing  eastward, 

The  blithe  wind  cannot  rest, 
And  a  shard  on  the  shingle  flashes 

Like  the  shining  soul  of  a  jest  ; 

While  children  romp  in  the  surges, 

And  sweethearts  wander  free, 
And  the  Firth  as  with  laughter  dimples  .  .  . 

I  would  it  were  deep  over  me  ! 

1875 


136  ECHOES 


XVIII 

To  A.  D. 

The  nightingale  has  a  lyre  of  gold, 

The  lark's  is  a  clarion  call, 
And  the  blackbird  plays  but  a  boxwood  flute, 

But  I  love  him  best  of  all. 

For  his  song  is  all  of  the  joy  of  life, 
And  we  in  the  mad,  spring  weather, 

We  two  have  listened  till  he  sang 
Our  hearts  and  lips  together. 

1876 


ECHOES  137 


XIX 


Your  heart  has  trembled  to  my  tongue, 

Your  hands  in  mine  have  lain, 
Your  thought  to  me  has  leaned  and  clung, 
Again  and  yet  again, 

My  dear, 
Again  and  yet  again. 

Now  die  the  dream,  or  come  the  wife, 

The  past  is  not  in  vain, 
For  wholly  as  it  was  your  life 
Can  never  be  again, 

My  dear, 
Can  never  be  again. 

1876 


138  ECHOES 


xx 

The  surges  gushed  and  sounded, 
The  blue  was  the  blue  of  June, 

And  low  above  the  brightening  east 
Floated  a  shred  of  moon. 

The  woods  were  black  and  solemn, 
The  night  winds  large  and  free, 

And  in  your  thought  a  blessing  seemed 
To  fall  on  land  and  sea. 

1877 


ECHOES  139 


XXI 

We  flash  across  the  level. 

We  thunder  thro'  the  bridges. 
We  bicker  down  the  cuttings. 

We  sway  along  the  ridges. 

A  rush  of  streaming  hedges, 
Of  jostling  lights  and  shadows, 

Of  hurtling,  hurrying  stations, 
Of  racing  woods  and  meadows. 

We  charge  the  tunnels  headlong — 
The  blackness  roars  and  shatters. 

We  crash  between  embankments — 
The  open  spins  and  scatters. 

We  shake  off  the  miles  like  water, 
We  might  carry  a  royal  ransom ; 

And  I  think  of  her  waiting,  waiting, 
And  long  for  a  common  hansom. 

1876 


140  ECHOES 


XXII 


The  West  a  glimmering  lake  of  light, 

A  dream  of  pearly  weather, 
The  first  of  stars  is  burning  white — 

The  star  we  watch  together. 
Is  April  dead  ?     The  unresting  year 

Will  shape  us  our  September, 
And  April's  work  is  done,  my  dear — 

Do  you  not  remember  ? 

O  gracious  eve  !  O  happy  star, 

Still-flashing,  glowing,  sinking  ! — 
Who  lives  of  lovers  near  or  far 

So  glad  as  I  in  thinking  ? 
The  gallant  world  is  warm  and  green, 

For  May  fulfils  November. 
When  lights  and  leaves  and  loves  have  been, 

Sweet,  will  you  remember? 


ECHOES  141 

O  star  benignant  and  serene, 

I  take  the  good  to-morrow, 
That  fills  from  verge  to  verge  my  dream, 

With  all  its  joy  and  sorrow  ! 
The  old,  sweet  spell  is  unforgot 

That  turns  to  June  December  ; 
And,  tho'  the  world  remembered  not, 

Love,  we  would  remember. 

1876 


142  ECHOES 


XXIII 

The  skies  are  strown  with  stars, 
The  streets  are  fresh  with  dew, 
A  thin  moon  drifts  to  westward, 
The  night  is  hushed  and  cheerful : 
My  thought  is  quick  with  you. 

Near  windows  gleam  and  laugh, 

And  far  away  a  train 
Clanks  glowing  through  the  stillness : 
A  great  content 's  in  all  things, 

And  life  is  not  in  vain. 


1877 


ECHOES  143 


XXIV 


The  full  sea  rolls  and  thunders 

In  glory  and  in  glee. 
O,  bury  me  not  in  the  senseless  earth 

But  in  the  living  sea  ! 

Ay,  bury  me  where  it  surges 
A  thousand  miles  from  shore, 

And  in  its  brotherly  unrest 
I  '11  range  for  evermore. 


1876 


144  ECHOES 


XXV 


In  the  year  that 's  come  and  gone,  love,  his  flying 

feather 
Stooping  slowly,  gave  us  heart,  and  bade  us  walk 

together. 
In  the  year  that 's  coming  on,  though  many  a  troth 

be  broken, 
We  at  least  will  not  forget  aught  that  love  hath 

spoken. 

In  the  year  that 's  come  and  gone,  dear,  we  wove 

a  tether 
All  of  gracious  words  and  thoughts,  binding  two 

together. 
In  the  year  that 's  coming  on  with  its  wealth  of 

roses 
We  shall  weave  it  stronger   yet,   ere   the   circle 

closes. 


ECHOES  145 

In  the  year  that 's  come  and  gone,  in  the  golden 

weather, 
Sweet,  my  sweet,  we  swore  to  keep  the  watch  of 

life  together. 
In   the   year  that 's   coming  on,  rich  in  joy  and 

sorrow, 
We  shall  light  our  lamp,  and  wait  life's  mysterious 

morrow. 

1877 


i46  ECHOES 


XXVI 

In  the  placid  summer  midnight, 

Under  the  drowsy  sky, 
I  seem  to  hear  in  the  stillness 

The  moths  go  glimmering  by. 

One  by  one  from  the  windows 
The  lights  have  all  been  sped. 

Never  a  blind  looks  conscious — 
The  street  is  asleep  in  bed ! 

But  I  come  where  a  living  casement 
Laughs  luminous  and  wide  ; 

I  hear  the  song  of  a  piano 
Break  in  a  sparkling  tide ; 

And  I  feel,  in  the  waltz  that  frolics 
And  warbles  swift  and  clear, 

A  sudden  sense  of  shelter 

And  friendliness  and  cheer  .  .  . 


ECHOES  147 

A  sense  of  tinkling  glasses, 

Of  love  and  laughter  and  light — 

The  piano  stops,  and  the  window 
Stares  blank  out  into  the  night. 

The  blind  goes  out,  and  I  wander 

To  the  old,  unfriendly  sea, 
The  lonelier  for  the  memory 

That  walks  like  a  ghost  with  me. 


148  ECHOES 


xxvn 


She  sauntered  by  the  swinging  seas, 

A  jewel  glittered  at  her  ear, 
And,  teasing  her  along,  the  breeze 

Brought  many  a  rounded  grace  more  near. 

So  passing,  one  with  wave  and  beam, 

She  left  for  memory  to  caress 
A  laughing  thought,  a  golden  gleam, 

A  hint  of  hidden  loveliness. 

1876 


ECHOES  149 


XXVIII 

To  S.  C. 

Blithe  dreams  arise  to  greet  us, 

And  life  feels  clean  and  new, 
For  the  old  love  comes  to  meet  us 

In  the  dawning  and  the  dew. 
O'erblown  with  sunny  shadows, 

O'ersped  with  winds  at  play, 
The  woodlands  and  the  meadows 

Are  keeping  holiday. 
Wild  foals  are  scampering,  neighing, 

Brave  merles  their  hautboys  blow  : 
Come  !  let  us  go  a-maying 

As  in  the  Long-Ago. 

Here  we  but  peak  and  dwindle : 
The  clank  of  chain  and  crane, 

The  whir  of  crank  and  spindle 
Bewilder  heart  and  brain  ; 


150  ECHOES 

The  ends  of  our  endeavour 

Are  merely  wealth  and  fame, 
Yet  in  the  still  Forever 

We  're  one  and  all  the  same  ; 
Delaying,  still  delaying, 

We  watch  the  fading  west : 
Come  !  let  us  go  a-maying, 

Nor  fear  to  take  the  best. 

Yet  beautiful  and  spacious 

The  wise,  old  world  appears. 
Yet  frank  and  fair  and  gracious 

Outlaugh  the  jocund  years. 
Our  arguments  disputing, 

The  universal  Pan 
Still  wanders  fluting — fluting — 

Fluting  to  maid  and  man. 
Our  weary  well-a-waying 

His  music  cannot  still : 
Come  !  let  us  go  a-maying, 

And  pipe  with  him  our  fill. 

Where  wanton  winds  are  flowing 
Among  the  gladdening  grass  ; 


ECHOES  15' 

Where  hawthorn  brakes  are  blowing, 

And  meadow  perfumes  pass  ; 
Where  morning's  grace  is  greenest, 

And  fullest  noon's  of  pride  ; 
Where  sunset  spreads  serenest, 

And  sacred  night 's  most  wide  ; 
Where  nests  are  swaying,  swaying, 

And  spring's  fresh  voices  call, 
Come  !  let  us  go  a-maying, 

And  bless  the  God  of  all ! 

1878 


152  ECHOES 


XXIX 

To  R.  L.  S. 

A  CHILD, 

Curious  and  innocent, 

Slips  from  his  Nurse,  and  rejoicing 

Loses  himself  in  the  Fair. 

Thro'  the  jostle  and  din 
Wandering,  he  revels, 
Dreaming,  desiring,  possessing  ; 
Till,  of  a  sudden 
Tired  and  afraid,  he  beholds 
The  sordid  assemblage 
Just  as  it  is  ;  and  he  runs 
With  a  sob  to  his  Nurse 
(Lighting  at  last  on  him), 
And  in  her  motherly  bosom 
Cries  him  to  sleep. 


ECHOES  153 

Thus  thro'  the  World, 

Seeing  and  feeling  and  knowing, 

Goes  Man  :  till  at  last, 

Tired  of  experience,  he  turns 

To  the  friendly  and  comforting  breast 

Of  the  old  nurse,  Death. 

1876 


154  ECHOES 


XXX 

Kate-a-Whimsies,  John-a-Dreams, 

Still  debating,  still  delay. 
And  the  world  's  a  ghost  that  gleams — 

Wavers — vanishes  away  ! 

We  must  live  while  live  we  can  ; 

We  should  love  while  love  we  may. 
Dread  in  women,  doubt  in  man  .   .  . 

So  the  Infinite  runs  away. 

1876 


ECHOES  155 


XXXI 


O,  have  vou  blessed,  behind  the  stars. 

The  blue  sheen  in  the  skies, 
When  June  the  roses  round  her  calls  ? — 
Then  do  vou  know  the  light  that  falls 

From  her  beloved  eyes. 

And  have  vou  felt  the  sense  of  peace 

That  morning  meadows  give ? — 
Then  do  you  know  the  spirit  of  grace. 

The  angel  abiding  in  her  face, 
Who  makes  it  good  to  live. 

She  shines  before  me,  hope  and  dream, 

So  fair,  so  still,  so  wise, 
That,  winning  her,  I  seem  to  win 
Out  of  the  dust  and  drive  and  din 

A  nook  of  Paradise. 

1877 


i56  ECHOES 


XXXII 

To  D.  H. 

O,  Falmouth  is  a  fine  town  with  ships  in  the  bay, 
And  I  wish  from  my  heart  it 's  there  I  was  to-day  ; 
I  wish  from  my  heart  I  was  far  away  from  here, 
Sitting  in  my  parlour  and  talking  to  my  dear. 

For  it's  home,  dearie,  home — it's  home  I  want 
to  be. 

Our  topsails  are  hoisted,  and  we  '11  away  to  sea. 

O,  the  oak  and  the  ash  and  the  bonnie  birken 
tree 

They  're  all  growing  green  in  the  old  countrie. 

In  Baltimore  a-walking  a  lady  I  did  meet 

With  her  babe  on  her  arm,  as  she  came  down  the 

street  ; 
And  I  thought  how  I  sailed,  and  the  cradle  standing 

ready 
For  the  pretty  little  babe  that  has  never  seen  it9 

daddie. 
And  it 's  home,  dearie,  home  .  .  . 


ECHOES  157 

O,  if  it  be  a  lass,  she  shall  wear  a  golden  ring  ; 
And  if  it  be  a  lad,  he  shall  fight  for  his  king  : 
With  his  dirk  and  his  hat  and  his  little  jacket  blue 
He  shall  walk  the  quarter-deck  as  his  daddie  used 
to  do. 
And  it 's  home,  dearie,  home  .  .  . 

O,  there's  a  wind  a-blowing,  a-blowing  from  the 

west, 
And  that  of  all  the  winds  is  the  one  I  like  the  best, 
For  it  blows  at  our  backs,  and  it  shakes  our  pennon 

free, 
And  it  soon  will  blow  us  home  to  the  old  countrie. 
For  it's  home,  dearie,  home — it's  home  I  want 

to  be. 
Our  topsails  are  hoisted,  and  we  '11  away  to  sea. 
O,  the  oak  and  the  ash  and  the  bonnie  birken 

tree 
They're  all  growing  green  in  the  old  countrie. 

1878 

Note. — The  burthen  and  the  third  stanza  are  old. 


i58  ECHOES 


XXXIII 


The  ways  are  green  with  the  gladdening  sheen 

Of  the  young  year's  fairest  daughter. 
O,  the  shadows  that  fleet  o'er  the  springing  wheat ! 

O,  the  magic  of  running  water  ! 
The  spirit  of  spring  is  in  every  thing, 

The  banners  of  spring  are  streaming, 
We  march  to  a  tune  from  the  fifes  of  June, 

And  life 's  a  dream  worth  dreaming. 

It 's  all  very  well  to  sit  and  spell 

At  the  lesson  there  's  no  gainsaying  ; 
But  what  the  deuce  are  wont  and  use 

When  the  whole  mad  world's  a-maying  ? 
When  the  meadow  glows,  and  the  orchard  snows, 

And  the  air  's  with  love-motes  teeming, 
When  fancies  break,  and  the  senses  wake, 

O,  life  's  a  dream  worth  dreaming  ! 


ECHOES  159 

What  Nature  has  writ  with  her  lusty  wit 

Is  worded  so  wisely  and  kindly 
That  whoever  has  dipped  in  her  manuscript 

Must  up  and  follow  her  blindly. 
Now  the  summer  prime  is  her  blithest  rhyme 

In  the  being  and  the  seeming, 
And  they  that  have  heard  the  overword 

Know  life 's  a  dream  worth  dreaming. 

1878 


i6o  ECHOES 


XXXIV 

To  K.  de  M. 

Love  blows  as  the  wind  blows, 

Love  blows  into  the  heart. — Nile  Boat-Song. 

Life  in  her  creaking  shoes 
Goes,  and  more  formal  grows, 
A  round  of  calls  and  cues  : 
Love  blows  as  the  wind  blows. 
Blows  !  ...  in  the  quiet  close 
As  in  the  roaring  mart, 
By  ways  no  mortal  knows 
Love  blows  into  the  heart. 

The  stars  some  cadence  use, 

Forthright  the  river  flows, 

In  order  fall  the  dews, 

Love  blows  as  the  wind  blows : 

Blows  !  .  .  .  and  what  reckoning  shows 

The  courses  of  his  chart  ? 

A  spirit  that  comes  and  goes, 

Love  blows  into  the  heart. 

1878 


ECHOES  161 


XXXV 
I.   M. 

MARGARITA  SORORI 

(1886) 

A  late  lark  twitters  from  the  quiet  skies ; 

And  from  the  west, 

Where  the  sun,  his  day's  work  ended, 

Lingers  as  in  content, 

There  tails  on  the  old,  grey  city 

An  influence  luminous  and  serene, 

A  shining  peace. 

The  smoke  ascends 

In  a  rosy-and-golden  haze.     The  spires 
Shine,  and  are  changed.     In  the  valley 
Shadows  rise.     The  lark  sings  on.     The  sun, 
Closing  his  benediction, 

L 


i6i  ECHOES 

Sinks,  and  the  darkening  air 

Thrills  with  a  sense  of  the  triumphing  night — 

Night  with  her  train  of  stars 

And  her  great  gift  of  sleep. 

So  be  my  passing  ! 

My  task  accomplished  and  the  long  day  done, 

My  wages  taken,  and  in  my  heart 

Some  late  lark  singing, 

Let  me  be  gathered  to  the  quiet  west, 

The  sundown  splendid  and  serene, 

Death. 

1876 


ECHOES  163 


XXXVI 


I  gave  my  heart  to  a  woman — 
I  gave  it  her,  branch  and  root. 

She  bruised,  she  wrung,  she  tortured. 
She  cast  it  under  foot. 

Under  her  feet  she  cast  it, 
She  trampled  it  where  it  fell. 

She  broke  it  all  to  pieces, 
And  each  was  a  clot  of  hell. 

There  in  the  rain  and  the  sunshine 
They  lay  and  smouldered  long  ; 

And  each,  when  again  she  viewed  them, 
Had  turned  to  a  living  song. 


164  ECHOES 


XXXVII 

To  W.  A. 

Or  ever  the  knightly  years  were  gone 
With  the  old  world  to  the  grave, 

I  was  a  King  in  Babylon 

And  you  were  a  Christian  Slave. 

I  saw,  I  took,  I  cast  you  by, 
I  bent  and  broke  your  pride. 

You  loved  me  well,  or  I  heard  them  lie, 
But  your  longing  was  denied. 

Surely  I  knew  that  by  and  by 
You  cursed  your  gods  and  died. 

And  a  myriad  suns  have  set  and  shone 

Since  then  upon  the  grave 
Decreed  by  the  King  in  Babylon 

To  her  that  had  been  his  Slave. 

The  pride  I  trampled  is  now  my  scathe, 
For  it  tramples  me  again. 


ECHOES  165 

The  old  resentment  lasts  like  death, 
For  you  love,  yet  you  refrain. 

I  break  my  heart  on  your  hard  unfaith, 
And  I  break  my  heart  in  vain. 

Yet  not  for  an  hour  do  I  wish  undone 

The  deed  beyond  the  grave, 
When  I  was  a  King  in  Babylon 

And  you  were  a  Virgin  Slave. 


166  ECHOES 


XXXVIII 


On  the  way  to  Kew, 

By  the  river  old  and  gray, 

Where  in  the  Long  Ago 

We  laughed  and  loitered  so, 

I  met  a  ghost  to-day, 

A  ghost  that  told  of  you — 

A  ghost  of  low  replies 

And  sweet,  inscrutable  eyes 

Coming  up  from  Richmond 

As  you  used  to  do. 

By  the  river  old  and  gray, 
The  enchanted  Long  Ago 
Murmured  and  smiled  anew. 
On  the  way  to  Kew, 
March  had  the  laugh  of  May, 
The  bare  boughs  looked  aglow, 
And  old,  immortal  words 
Sang  in  my  breast  like  birds, 
Coming  up  from  Richmond 
As  I  used  with  you. 


ECHOES  167 


With  the  life  of  Long  Ago 
Lived  my  thought  of  you. 
By  the  river  old  and  gray 
Flowing  his  appointed  way 
As  I  watched  I  knew 
What  is  so  good  to  know — 
Not  in  vain,  not  in  vain, 
Shall  I  look  for  you  again 
Coming  up  from  Richmond 
On  the  way  to  Kew. 


1 68  ECHOES 


XXXIX 


The  Past  was  goodly  once,  and  yet,  when  all  is 

said, 
The  best  of  it  we  know  is  that  it 's  done  and  dead. 

Dwindled  and  faded  quite,  perished  beyond  recall, 
Nothing  is  left  at  last  of  what  one  time  was  all. 

Coming  back  like  a  ghost,  staring  and  lingering  on, 
Never  a  word  it  speaks  but  proves  it  dead  and  gone. 

Duty  and  work  and  joy — these  things  it  cannot 

give; 
And  the  Present  is  life,  and  life  is  good  to  live. 

Let  it  lie  where  it  fell,  far  from  the  living  sun, 
The  Past  that,  goodly  once,  is  gone  and  dead  and 
done. 


ECHOES  169 


XL 

The  spring,  my  dear, 
Is  no  longer  spring. 
Does  the  blackbird  sing 
What  he  sang  last  year  ? 
Are  the  skies  the  old 
Immemorial  blue  ? 
Or  am  I,  or  are  you, 
Grown  cold  ? 

Though  life  be  change. 
It  is  hard  to  bear 
When  the  old  sweet  air 
Sounds  forced  and  strange. 
To  be  out  of  tune, 
Plain  You  and  I  .  .  . 
It  were  better  to  die, 
And  soon ! 


i7o  ECHOES 


XLI 

To  R.  A.  M.  S. 


The  Spirit  of  Wine 
Sang  in  my  glass,  and  I  listened 
With  love  to  his  odorous  music, 
His  flushed  and  magnificent  song. 


-'  I  am  health,  I  am  heart,  I  am  life  ! 


For  I  give  for  the  asking 

The  fire  of  my  father,  the  Sun, 

And  the  strength  of  my  mother,  the  Earth. 

Inspiration  in  essence, 

I  am  wisdom  and  wit  to  the  wise, 

His  visible  muse  to  the  poet, 

The  soul  of  desire  to  the  lover, 

The  genius  of  laughter  to  all. 

'  Come,  lean  on  me,  ye  that  are  weary  ! 
Rise,  ye  faint-hearted  and  doubting  ! 
Haste,  ye  that  lag  by  the  way ! 
I  am  Pride,  the  consoler  ; 


ECHOES  171 

Valour  and  Hope  are  my  henchmen  ; 
I  am  the  Angel  of  Rest. 

1 1  am  life,  I  am  wealth,  I  am  fame : 
For  I  captain  an  army 
Of  shining  and  generous  dreams  ; 
And  mine,  too,  all  mine,  are  the  keys 
Of  that  secret  spiritual  shrine, 
Where,  his  work-a-day  soul  put  by, 
Shut  in  with  his  saint  of  saints — 
With  his  radiant  and  conquering  self — 
Man  worships,  and  talks,  and  is  glad. 


1  Come,  sit  with  me,  ye  that  are  lonely, 
Ye  that  are  paid  with  disdain, 
Ye  that  are  chained  and  would  soar  ! 
I  am  beauty  and  love  ; 
I  am  friendship,  the  comforter  ; 
I  am  that  which  forgives  and  forgets.'- 


The  Spirit  of  Wine 
Sang  in  my  heart,  and  I  triumphed 
In  the  savour  and  scent  of  his  music , 
His  magnetic  and  mastering  song. 


i72  ECHOES 


XLII 


A  wink  from  Hesper,  falling 

Fast  in  the  wintry  sky, 
Comes  through  the  even  blue, 
Dear,  like  a  word  from  you  .   .  . 

Is  it  good-bye  ? 

Across  the  miles  between  us 

I  send  you  sigh  for  sigh. 
Good-night,  sweet  friend,  good-night 
Till  life  and  all  take  flight, 

Never  good-bye. 


ECHOES  173 


XLin 

Friends  .  .  old  friends  .  .  . 
One  sees  how  it  ends. 
A  woman  looks 
Or  a  man  tells  lies, 
And  the  pleasant  brooks 
And  the  quiet  skies, 
Ruined  with  brawling 
And  caterwauling, 
Enchant  no  more 
As  they  did  before. 
And  so  it  ends 
With  friends. 

Friends  .  .  old  friends  .  .  . 
And  what  if  it  ends  ? 
Shall  we  dare  to  shirk 
What  we  live  to  learn  ? 
It  has  done  its  work, 
It  has  served  its  turn  ; 
And,  forgive  and  forget 
Or  hanker  and  fret, 


174  ECHOES 

We  can  be  no  more 
As  we  were  before. 
When  it  ends,  it  ends 
With  friends. 

Friends  .  .  old  friends  .  . 
So  it  breaks,  so  it  ends. 
There  let  it  rest ! 
It  has  fought  and  won, 
And  is  still  the  best 
That  either  has  done. 
Each  as  he  stands 
The  work  of  its  hands, 
Which  shall  be  more 
As  he  was  before  ?  .  .  . 
What  is  it  ends 
With  friends  ? 


ECHOES  175 


XLIV 


If  it  should  come  to  be, 
This  proof  of  you  and  me, 

This  type  and  sign 
Of  hours  that  smiled  and  shone, 
And  yet  seemed  dead  and  gone 

As  old-world  wine : 

Of  Them  Within  the  Gate 
Ask  we  no  richer  fate, 

No  boon  above, 
For  girl  child  or  for  boy. 
My  gift  of  life  and  joy, 

Your  gift  of  love. 


176  ECHOES 


XLV 

To  W.  B. 

From  the  brake  the  Nightingale 

Sings  exulting  to  the  Rose  ; 
Though  he  sees  her  waxing  pale 

In  her  passionate  repose, 
While  she  triumphs  waxing  frail, 

Fading  even  while  she  glows  ; 
Though  he  knows 
How  it  goes — 
Knows  of  last  year's  Nightingale 

Dead  with  last  year's  Rose. 

Wise  the  enamoured  Nightingale, 
Wise  the  well-beloved  Rose  ! 

Love  and  life  shall  still  prevail, 
Nor  the  silence  at  the  close 

Break  the  magic  of  the  tale 

In  the  telling,  though  it  shows— 


ECHOES  177 

Who  but  knows 
How  it  goes  ! — 
Life  a  last  year's  Nightingale, 
Love  a  last  year's  Rose. 


M 


178  ECHOES 


XLVl 

MATRI    DILECTISSI1VME 

I.   M. 

In  the  waste  hour 

Between  to-day  and  yesterday 

We  watched,  while  on  my  arm — 

Living  flesh  of  her  flesh,  bone  of  her  bone — 

Dabbled  in  sweat  the  sacred  head 

Lay  uncomplaining,  still,  contemptuous,  strange: 

Till  the  dear  face  turned  dead, 

And  to  a  sound  of  lamentation 

The  good,  heroic  soul  with  all  its  wealth — 

Its  sixty  years  of  love  and  sacrifice, 

Suffering  and  passionate  faith — was  reabsorbed 

In  the  inexorable  Peace, 

And  life  was  changed  to  us  for  evermore. 

Was  nothing  left  of  her  but  tears 
Like  blood-drops  from  the  heart  ? 


ECHOES  179 

Nought  save  remorse 

For  duty  unfulfilled,  justice  undone, 

And  charity  ignored  ?     Nothing  but  love, 

Forgiveness,  reconcilement,  where  in  truth, 

But  for  this  passing 

Into  the  unimaginable  abyss 

These  things  had  never  been? 

Nay,  there  were  we, 

Her  five  strong  sons  ! 

To  her  Death  came — the  great  Deliverer  came ! — 

As  equal  comes  to  equal,  throne  to  throne. 

She  was  a  mother  of  men. 

The  stars  shine  as  of  old.    The  unchanging  River, 

Bent  on  his  errand  of  immortal  law, 

Works  his  appointed  way 

To  the  immemorial  sea. 

And  the  brave  truth  comes  overwhelmingly  home: — 

That  she  in  us  yet  works  and  shines, 

Lives  and  fulfils  herself, 

Unending  as  the  river  and  the  stars. 

Dearest,  live  on 

In  such  an  immortality 


180  ECHOES 

As  we  thy  sons, 

Born  of  thy  body  and  nursed 

At  those  wild,  faithful  breasts, 

Can  give — of  generous  thoughts, 

And  honourable  words,  and  deeds 

That  make  men  half  in  love  with  fate  ! 

Live  on,  O  brave  and  true, 

In  us  thy  children,  in  ours  whose  life  is  thine — 

Our  best  and  theirs !    What  is  that  best  but  thee — 

Thee,  and  thy  gift  to  us,  to  pass 

Like  light  along  the  infinite  of  space 

To  the  immitigable  end  ? 

Between  the  river  and  the  stars, 

O  royal  and  radiant  soul, 

Thou  dost  return,  thine  influences  return 

Upon  thy  children  as  in  life,  and  death 

Turns  stingless  !     What  is  Death 

But  Life  in  act  ?   How  should  the  Unteeming  Grave 

Be  victor  over  thee, 

Mother,  a  mother  of  men  ? 


ECHOES  181 


XLVII 

Crosses  and  troubles  a-many  have  proved  me. 
One  or  two  women  (God  bless  them  !)  have  loved 

me. 
I  have  worked  and  dreamed,  and  I  've  talked  at  will. 
Of  art  and  drink  I  have  had  my  fill. 
I  've  comforted  here,  and  I  've  succoured  there. 
I  've  faced  my  foes,  and  I  've  backed  my  friends. 
I  've  blundered,  and  sometimes  made  amends. 
I  have  prayed  for  light,  and  I  've  known  despair. 
Now  I  look  before,  as  I  look  behind, 
Come  storm,  come  shine,  whatever  befall, 
With  a  grateful  heart  and  a  constant  mind, 
For  the  end  I  know  is  the  best  of  all. 

1888-1889 


LONDON 
VOLUNTARIES 

(To  Charles  Whibley) 


1890-1892 


Grave 

St.  Margaret's  bells, 

Quiring  their  innocent,  old-world  canticles, 

Sing  in  the  storied  air, 

All  rosy-and-golden,  as  with  memories 

Of  woods  at  evensong,  and  sands  and  seas 

Disconsolate  for  that  the  night  is  nigh. 

O,  the  low,  lingering  lights  !     The  large  last  gleam 

(Hark  !  how  those  brazen  choristers  cry  and  call  !) 

Touching  these  solemn  ancientries,  and  there, 

The  silent  River  ranging  tide-mark  high 

And  the  callow,  grey-faced  Hospital, 

With    the    strange    glimmer    and    glamour    of   a 

dream  ! 
The  Sabbath  peace  is  in  the  slumbrous  trees, 
And  from  the  wistful,  the  fast-widowing  sky 
(Hark  !   how  those  plangent  comforters  call  and 

cry!) 
Falls  as  in  August  plots  late  roseleaves  fall. 
The  sober  Sabbath  stir — 

18* 


[86  LONDON  VOLUNTARIES 

Leisurely  voices,  desultory  feet ! — 
Comes  from  the  dry,  dust-coloured  street, 
Where  in  their  summer  frocks  the  girls  go  by, 
And  sweethearts  lean  and  loiter  and  confer, 
Just  as  they  did  an  hundred  years  ago, 
Just  as  an  hundred  years  to  come  they  will : — 
When  you  and  I,  Dear  Love,  lie  lost  and  low, 
And  sweet-throats  none  our  welkin  shall  fulfil, 
Nor  any  sunset  fade  serene  and  slow  ; 
But,  being  dead,  we  shall  not  grieve  to  die. 


LONDON  VOLUNTARIES  187 


11 

Andante  con  moto 

Forth  from  the  dust  and  din, 

The  crush,  the  heat,  the  many-spotted  glare, 

The  odour  and  sense  of  life  and  lust  aflare, 

The  wrangle  and  jangle  of  unrests, 

Let  us  take  horse,  Dear  Heart,  take  horse  and 

win — 
As  from  swart  August  to  the  green  lap  of  May — 
To  quietness  and  the  fresh  and  fragrant  breasts 
Of  the  still,  delicious  night,  not  yet  aware 
In  any  of  her  innumerable  nests 
Of  that  first  sudden  plash  of  dawn, 
Clear,  sapphirine,  luminous,  large, 
Which  tells  that  soon  the  flowing  springs  of  day 
In  deep  and  ever  deeper  eddies  drawn 
Forward  and  up,  in  wider  and  wider  way, 
Shall  float  the  sands,  and  brim  the  shores, 


188  LONDON  VOLUNTARIES 

On  this  our  lith  of  the  World,  as  round  it  roars 
And  spins  into  the  outlook  of  the  Sun 
(The  Lord's  first  gift,  the  Lord's  especial  charge), 
With    light,    with    living    light,    from    marge    to 

marge 
Until  the  course  He  set  and  staked  be  run. 

Through  street  and  square,  through  square  and 

street, 
Each  with  his  home-grown  quality  of  dark 
And  violated  silence,  loud  and  fleet, 
Waylaid  by  a  merry  ghost  at  every  lamp, 
The  hansom  wheels  and  plunges.     Hark,  O,  hark, 
Sweet,  how  the  old  mare's  bit  and  chain 
Ring  back  a  rough  refrain 
Upon  the  marked  and  cheerful  tramp 
Of  her  four  shoes  !     Here  is  the  Park, 
And  O,  the  languid  midsummer  wafts  adust, 
The  tired  midsummer  blooms  ! 
O,  the  mysterious  distances,  the  glooms 
Romantic,  the  august 
And   solemn   shapes  !      At    night    this   City  of 

Trees 
Turns  to  a  tryst  of  vague  and  strange 
And  monstrous  Majesties, 


LONDON  VOLUNTARIES  189 

Let  loose  from  some  dim  underworld  to  range 

These  terrene  vistas  till  their  twilight  sets  : 

When,  dispossessed  of  wonderfulness,  they  stand 

Beggared  and  common,  plain  to  all  the  land 

For  stooks  of  leaves  !    And  lo  !  the  Wizard  Hour, 

His  silent,  shining  sorcery  winged  with  power  ! 

Still,  still  the  streets,  between  their  carcanets 

Of  linking  gold,  are  avenues  of  sleep. 

But  see  how  gable  ends  and  parapets 

In  gradual  beauty  and  significance 

Emerge  !     And  did  you  hear 

That  little  twitter-and-cheep, 

Breaking  inordinately  loud  and  clear 

On  this  still,  spectral,  exquisite  atmosphere  ? 

'Tis  a  first  nest  at  matins  !     And  behold 

A  rakehell  cat — how  furtive  and  acold  ! 

A    spent   witch    homing    from    some    infamous 

dance — 
Obscene,  quick-trotting,  see  her  tip  and  fade 
Through  shadowy  railings  into  a  pit  of  shade  ! 
And  now  !  a  little  wind  and  shy, 
The  smell  of  ships  (that  earnest  of  romance), 
A  sense  of  space  and  water,  and  thereby 
A  lamplit  bridge  ouching  the  troubled  sky, 
And  look,  O,  look  !  a  tangle  of  silver  gleams 


190  LONDON  VOLUNTARIES 

And  dusky  lights,  our  River  and  all  his  dreams, 
His  dreams  that  never  save  in  our  deaths  can  die. 


What  miracle  is  happening  in  the  air, 

Charging  the  very  texture  of  the  gray 

With  something  luminous  and  rare  ? 

The  night  goes  out  like  an  ill-parcelled  fire, 

And,  as  one  lights  a  candle,  it  is  day. 

The  extinguisher,  that  perks  it  like  a  spire 

On  the  little  formal  church,  is  not  yet  green 

Across  the  water  :  but  the  house-tops  nigher, 

The  corner-lines,  the  chimneys — look  how  clean, 

How  new,  how  naked  !     See  the  batch  of  boats, 

Here   at  the  stairs,   washed   in  the  fresh-sprung 

beam  ! 
And  those  are  barges  that  were  goblin  floats, 
Black,    hag-steered,    fraught    with    devilry    and 

dream  ! 
And  in  the  piles  the  water  frolics  clear, 
The  ripples  into  loose  rings  wander  and  flee, 
And  we — we  can  behold  that  could  but  hear 
The  ancient  River  singing  as  he  goes, 
New-mailed  in  morning,  to  the  ancient  Sea. 
The  gas  burns  lank  and  jaded  in  its  glass  : 
The  old  Ruffian  soon  shall  yawn  himself  awake, 


LONDON  VOLUNTARIES  191 

And    light    his    pipe,    and    shoulder    his    tools, 

and  take 
His  hobnailed  way  to  work  ! 

Let  us  too  pass — 
Pass  ere  the  sun  leaps  and  your  shadow  shows — 
Through  these  long,  blindfold  rows 
Of  casements  staring  blind  to  right  and  left, 
Each  with  his  gaze  turned  inward  on  some  piece 
Of  life  in  death's  own  likeness — Life  bereft 
Of  living  looks  as  by  the  Great  Release — 
Pass  to  an  exquisite  night's  more  exquisite  close  ! 

Reach  upon  reach  of  burial — so  they  feel, 
These  colonies  of  dreams  !     And  as  we  steal 
Homeward  together,  but  for  the  buxom  breeze, 
Fitfully  frolicking  to  heel 
With  news  of  dawn-drenched  woods  and  tumbling 

seas, 
We  might — thus  awed,  thus  lonely  that  we  are — 
Be  wandering  some  dispeopled  star, 
Some  world  of  memories  and  unbroken  graves, 
So  broods  the  abounding  Silence  near  and  far  : 
Till  even  your  footfall  craves 
Forgiveness  of  the  majesty  it  braves. 


i92  LONDON  VOLUNTARIES 


in 

Scherxando 

Down  through  the  ancient  Strand 

The  spirit  of  October,  mild  and  boon 

And  sauntering,  takes  his  way 

This  golden  end  of  afternoon, 

As  though  the  corn  stood  yellow  in  all  the  land, 

And  the  ripe  apples  dropped  to  the  harvest-moon. 

Lo  !  the  round  sun,  half-down  the  western  slope — 

Seen  as  along  an  unglazed  telescope — 

Lingers  and  lolls,  loth  to  be  done  with  day  : 

Gifting  the  long,  lean,  lanky  street 

And  its  abounding  confluences  of  being 

With  aspects  generous  and  bland  ; 

Making  a  thousand  harnesses  to  shine 

As  with  new  ore  from  some  enchanted  mine, 

And  every  horse's  coat  so  full  of  sheen 


LONDON  VOLUNTARIES  193 

He  looks  new-tailored,  and  every  'bus  feels  clean, 

And  never  a  hansom  but  is  worth  the  feeing  ; 

And  every  jeweller  within  the  pale 

Offers  a  real  Arabian  Night  for  sale  ; 

And  even  the  roar 

Of  the  strong  streams  of  toil,  that  pause  and  pour 

Eastward  and  westward,  sounds  suffused — 

Seems  as  it  were  bemused 

And  blurred,  and  like  the  speech 

Of  lazy  seas  on  a  lotus-haunted  beach — 

With  this  enchanted  lustrousness, 

This  mellow  magic,  that  (as  a  man's  caress 

Brings  back  to  some  faded  face,  beloved  before, 

A  heavenly  shadow  of  the  grace  it  wore 

Ere  the  poor  eyes  were  minded  to  beseech) 

Old  things  transfigures,  and  you  hail  and  bless 

Their  looks  of  long-lapsed  loveliness  once  more : 

Till  Clement's,  angular  and  cold  and  staid, 

Gleams  forth  in  glamour's  very  stuffs  arrayed  ; 

And  Bride's,  her  aery,  unsubstantial  charm 

Through  flight  on  flight  of  springing,  soaring  stone 

Grown  flushed  and  warm, 

Laughs  into  life  full-mooded  and  fresh-blown  ; 

And  the  high  majesty  of  Paul's 

Uplifts  a  voice  of  living  light,  and  calls — 

N 


i94  LONDON  VOLUNTARIES 

Calls  to  his  millions  to  behold  and  see 
How  goodly  this  his  London  Town  can  be  ! 

For  earth  and  sky  and  air 

Are  golden  everywhere, 

And  golden  with  a  gold  so  suave  and  line 

The  looking  on  it  lifts  the  heart  like  wine. 

Trafalgar  Square 

(The  fountains  volleying  golden  glaze) 

Shines  like  an  angel-market.     High  aloft 

Over  his  couchant  Lions,  in  a  haze 

Shimmering  and  bland  and  soft, 

A  dust  of  chrysoprase, 

Our  Sailor  takes  the  golden  gaze 

Of  the  saluting  sun,  and  flames  superb, 

As  once  he  flamed  it  on  his  ocean  round. 

The  dingy  dreariness  of  the  picture-place, 

Turned  very  nearly  bright, 

Takes  on  a  luminous  transiency  of  grace, 

And  shows  no  more  a  scandal  to  the  ground. 

The  very  blind  man  pottering  on  the  kerb, 

Among  the  posies  and  the  ostrich  feathers 

And  the  rude  voices  touched  with  all  the  weathers 

Of  the  long,  varying  year, 

Shares  in  the  universal  alms  of  light. 


LONDON  VOLUNTARIES  195 

The  windows,  with  their  fleeting,  flickering  fires, 

The  height  and  spread  of  frontage  shining  sheer, 

The  quiring  signs,  the  rejoicing  roofs  and  spires — 

'Tis  El  Dorado — El  Dorado  plain, 

The  Golden  City  !     And  when  a  girl  goes  by, 

Look  !  as  she  turns  her  glancing  head, 

A  call  of  gold  is  floated  from  her  ear  ! 

Golden,  all  golden  !     In  a  golden  glory, 

Long-lapsing  down  a  golden  coasted  sky, 

The  day,  not  dies  but,  seems 

Dispersed  in  wafts  and  drifts  of  gold,  and  shed 

Upon  a  past  of  golden  song  and  story 

And  memories  of  gold  and  golden  dreams. 


iq6  LONDON  VOLUNTARIES 


IV 


Largo  e  mesto 

Out  of  the  poisonous  East, 

Over  a  continent  of  blight, 

Like  a  maleficent  Influence  released 

From  the  most  squalid  cellarage  of  hell, 

The  Wind-Fiend,  the  abominable — 

The  Hangman  Wind  that  tortures  temper  and  light — 

Comes  slouching,  sullen  and  obscene. 

Hard  on  the  skirts  of  the  embittered  night ; 

And  in  a  cloud  unclean 

Of  excremental  humours,  roused  to  strife 

By  the  operation  of  some  ruinous  change, 

Wherever  his  evil  mandate  run  and  range, 

Into  a  dire  intensity  of  life, 

A  craftsman  at  his  bench,  he  settles  down 

To  the  grim  job  of  throttling  London  Town. 

So,  by  a  jealous  lightlessness  beset 

That  might  have  oppressed  the  dragons  of  old  time 


LONDON  VOLUNTARIES  197 

Crunching  and  groping  in  the  abysmal  slime, 

A  cave  of  cut-throat  thoughts  and  villainous  dreams, 

Hag-rid  and  crying  with  cold  and  dirt  and  wet, 

The  afflicted  City,  prone  from  mark  to  mark 

In  shameful  occultation,  seems 

A  nightmare  labyrinthine,  dim  and  drifting, 

With  wavering  gulfs  and  antic  heights,  and  shifting, 

Rent  in  the  stuff  of  a  material  dark, 

Wherein  the  lamplight,  scattered  and  sick  and  pale, 

Shows  like  the  leper's  living  blotch  of  bale  : 

Uncoiling  monstrous  into  street  on  street 

Paven  with  perils,  teeming  with  mischance, 

Where  man  and  beast  go  blindfold  and  in  dread, 

Working  with  oaths  and  threats  and  faltering  feet 

Somewhither  in  the  hideousness  ahead  ; 

Working  through  wicked  airs  and  deadly  dews 

That  make  the  laden  robber  grin  askance 

At  the  good  places  in  his  black  romance, 

And  the  poor,  loitering  harlot  rather  choose 

Go  pinched  and  pined  to  bed 

Than  lurk  and  shiver  and  curse  her  wretched  way 

From  arch  to  arch,  scouting  some  threepenny  prey. 

Forgot  his  dawns  and  far-flushed  afterglows, 
His  green  garlands  and  windy  eyots  forgot, 


iq8  LONDON  VOLUNTARIES 

The  old  Father-River  flows, 

His  watchfires  cores  of  menace  in  the  gloom, 

As  he  came  oozing  from  the  Pit,  and  bore, 

Sunk  in  his  filthily  transfigured  sides, 

Shoals  of  dishonoured  dead  to  tumble  and  rot 

In  the  squalor  of  the  universal  shore  : 

His  voices  sounding  through  the  gruesome  air 

As  from  the  Ferry  where  the  Boat  of  Doom 

With  her  blaspheming  cargo  reels  and  rides  : 

The  while  his  children,  the  brave  ships, 

No  more  adventurous  and  fair, 

Nor    tripping    it   light    of  heel    as    home-bound 

brides, 
But  infamously  enchanted, 
Huddle  together  in  the  foul  eclipse, 
Or  feel  their  course  by  inches  desperately, 
As  through  a  tangle  of  alleys  murder-haunted, 
From  sinister  reach  to  reach  out — out — to  sea. 

And  Death  the  while — 

Death  with  his  well-worn,  lean,  professional  smile, 

Death  in  his  threadbare  working  trim — 

Comes  to  your  bedside,  unannounced  and  bland, 

And  with  expert,  inevitable  hand 

Feels  at  your  windpipe,  fingers  you  in  the  lung, 


LONDON  VOLUNTARIES  199 

Or  flicks  the  clot  well  into  the  labouring  heart : 

Thus  signifying  unto  old  and  young, 

However  hard  of  mouth  or  wild  of  whim, 

'Tis  time — 'tis  time  by  his  ancient  watch — to  part 

From  books  and  women  and  talk  and  drink  and 

art. 
And  you  go  humbly  after  him 
To  a  mean  suburban  lodging  :  on  the  way 
To  what  or  where 

Not  Death,  who  is  old  and  very  wise,  can  say  : 
And  you — how  should  you  care 
So  long  as,  unreclaimed  of  hell, 
The  Wind-Fiend,  the  insufferable, 
Thus  vicious  and  thus  patient,  sits  him  down 
To  the  black  job  of  burking  London  Town? 


200  LONDON  VOLUNTARIES 


Allegro  maestoso 

Spring  winds  that  blow 

As  over  leagues  of  myrtle-blooms  and  may  ; 

Bevies  of  spring  clouds  trooping  slow, 

Like  matrons  heavy  bosomed  and  aglow 

With  the  mild  and  placid  pride  of  increase  !     Nay, 

What  makes  this  insolent  and  comely  stream 

Of  appetence,  this  freshet  of  desire 

(Milk  from  the  wild  breasts  of  the  wilful  Day  !), 

Down  Piccadilly  dance  and  murmur  and  gleam 

In  genial  wave  on  wave  and  gyre  on  gyre  ? 

Why    does    that    nymph   unparalleled   splash   and 

churn 
The  wealth  of  her  enchanted  urn 
Till,  over-billowing  all  between 
Her  cheerful  margents,  grey  and  living  green, 
It  floats  and  wanders,  glittering  and  fleeing, 
An  estuary  of  the  joy  of  being  ? 
Why  should  the  lovely  leafage  of  the  Park 
Touch  to  an  ecstasy  the  act  of  seeing  ? 


LONDON  VOLUNTARIES  201 

— Sure,  sure  my  paramour,  my  Bride  of  Brides, 

Lingering  and  flushed,  mysteriously  abides 

In  some  dim,  eye-proof  angle  of  odorous  dark, 

Some  smiling  nook  of  green-and-golden  shade, 

In  the  divine  conviction  robed  and  crowned 

The  globe  fulfils  his  immemorial  round 

But  as  the  marrying-place  of  all  things  made  ! 

There  is  no  man,  this  deifying  day, 

But  feels  the  primal  blessing  in  his  blood. 

There  is  no  woman  but  disdains — 

The  sacred  impulse  of  the  May 

Brightening  like  sex  made  sunshine  through  her 

veins — 
To  vail  the  ensigns  of  her  womanhood. 
None  but,  rejoicing,  flaunts  them  as  she  goes, 
Bounteous  in  looks  of  her  delicious  best, 
On  her  inviolable  quest : 
These   with  their  hopes,  with  their  sweet  secrets 

those, 
But  all  desirable  and  frankly  fair, 
As  each  were  keeping  some  most  prosperous  tryst, 
And  in  the  knowledge  went  imparadised  ! 
For  look  !  a  magical  influence  everywhere, 
Look  how  the  liberal  and  transfiguring  air 


202  LONDON  VOLUNTARIES 

Washes  this  inn  of  memorable  meetings, 

This  centre  of  ravishments  and  gracious  greetings, 

Till,  through  its  jocund  loveliness  of  length 

A  tidal-race  of  lust  from  shore  to  shore, 

A  brimming  reach  of  beauty  met  with  strength, 

It  shines  and  sounds  like  some  miraculous  dream, 

Some  vision  multitudinous  and  agleam, 

Of  happiness  as  it  shall  be  evermore  ! 

Praise  God  for  giving 

Through  this  His  messenger  among  the  days 

His  word  the  life  He  gave  is  thrice-worth  living  ! 

For  Pan,  the  bountiful,  imperious  Pan — 

Not  dead,  not  dead,  as  impotent  dreamers  feigned, 

But  the  gay  genius  of  a  million  Mays 

Renewing  his  beneficent  endeavour  ! — 

Still  reigns  and  triumphs,  as  he  hath  triumphed  and 

reigned 
Since  in  the  dim  blue  dawn  of  time 
The  universal  ebb-and-flow  began, 
To  sound  his  ancient  music,  and  prevails, 
By  the  persuasion  of  his  mighty  rhyme, 
Here  in  this  radiant  and  immortal  street 
Lavishly  and  omnipotently  as  ever 
In  the  open  hills,  the  undissembling  dales, 


LONDON  VOLUNTARIES  203 

The  laughing-places  of  the  juvenile  earth. 
For  lo  !  the  wills  of  man  and  woman  meet, 
Meet  and  are  moved,  each  unto  each  endeared, 
As  once  in  Eden's  prodigal  bowers  befell, 
To  share  his  shameless,  elemental  mirth 
In  one  great  act  of  faith  :  while  deep  and  strong, 
Incomparably  nerved  and  cheered, 
The  enormous  heart  of  London  joys  to  beat 
To  the  measures  of  his  rough,  majestic  song  ; 
The  lewd,  perennial,  overmastering  spell 
That  keeps  the  rolling  universe  ensphered, 
And  life,  and  all  for  which  life  lives  to  long, 
Wanton  and  wondrous  and  for  ever  well. 


RHYMES 
AND     RHYTHMS 


1889-1892 


PROLOGUE 

Something  is  dead  .  .  . 
The  grace  of  sunset  solitudes,  the  march 
Of  the  solitary  moon,  the  pomp  and  power 
Of  round  on  round  of  shining  soldier-stars 
Patrolling  space,  the  bounties  of  the  sun — 
Sovran,  tremendous,  unimaginable — 
The  multitudinous  friendliness  of  the  sea, 
Possess  no  more — no  more. 

Something  is  dead  .  .  . 

The  Autumn  rain-rot  deeper  and  wider  soaks 

And  spreads,  the  burden  of  Winter  heavier  weighs, 

His  melancholy  close  and  closer  yet 

Cleaves,  and  those  incantations  of  the  Spring 

That  made  the  heart  a  centre  of  miracles 

Grow  formal,  and  the  wonder-working  hours 

Arise  no  more — no  more. 

Something  is  dead  .   .  . 

yTis  time  to  creep  in  close  about  the  fire 

207 


208  RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS 

And  tell  grey  tales  of  what  we  were,  and  dream 
Old  dreams  and  faded,  and  as  we  may  rejoice 
In  the  young  life  that  round  us  leaps  and  laughs, 
A  fountain  in  the  sunshine,  in  the  pride 
Of  Gods  best  gift  that  to  us  twain  returns, 
Dear  Heart,  no  more — no  more. 


To  H.  B.  M.  W. 

Where  forlorn  sunsets  flare  and  fade 

On  desolate  sea  and  lonely  sand, 
Out  of  the  silence  and  the  shade 

What  is  the  voice  of  strange  command 
Calling  you  still,  as  friend  calls  friend 

With  love  that  cannot  brook  delay, 
To  rise  and  follow  the  ways  that  wend 

Over  the  hills  and  far  away  ? 

Hark  in  the  city,  street  on  street 

A  roaring  reach  of  death  and  life, 
Of  vortices  that  clash  and  fleet 

And  ruin  in  appointed  strife, 
Hark  to  it  calling,  calling  clear, 

Calling  until  you  cannot  stay 
From  dearer  things  than  your  own  most  dear 

Over  the  hills  and  far  away. 


210  RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS 

Out  of  the  sound  of  the  ebb-and-flow, 

Out  of  the  sight  of  lamp  and  star, 
It  calls  you  where  the  good  winds  blow. 

And  the  unchanging  meadows  are  : 
From  faded  hopes  and  hopes  agleam, 

It  calls  you,  calls  you  night  and  day 
Beyond  the  dark  into  the  dream 

Over  the  hills  and  far  away. 


RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS  211 


11 

To  R.  F.  B. 

We  are  the  Choice  of  the  Will :  God,  when  He 

gave  the  word 
That  called  us  into  line,  set  in  our  hand  a  sword  ; 

Set  us  a  sword  to  wield  none  else  could  lift  and 

draw, 
And  bade  us  forth  to  the  sound  of  the  trumpet  of 

the  Law. 

East  and  west  and  north,  wherever  the  battle  grew, 
As  men  to  a  feast  we  fared,  the  work  of  the  Will 
to  do. 

Bent  upon  vast  beginnings,  bidding  anarchy  cease — 
(Had  we  hacked  it  to  the  Pit,  we  had  left  it  a 
place  of  peace  !) — 

Marching,  building,  sailing,  pillar  of  cloud  or  fire, 
Sons  of  the  Will,  we  fought  the  fight  of  the  Will, 
our  sire. 


2i2  RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS 

Road  was  never  so  rough  that  we  left  its  purpose 

dark  ; 
Stark  was  ever  the  sea,  but  our  ships  were  yet  more 

stark  ; 

We  tracked  the  winds  of  the  world  to  the  steps  of 

their  very  thrones  ; 
The  secret  parts  of  the  world  were  salted  with  our 

bones  ; 

Till  now  the  name  of  names,  England,  the  name  of 

might, 
Flames  from  the  austral  fires  to  the  bounds  of  the 

boreal  night ; 

And  the  call  of  her  morning  drum  goes  in  a  girdle 

of  sound, 
Like  the  voice  of  the  sun  in  song,  the  great  globe 

round  and  round  ; 

And  the  shadow  of  her  flag,  when  it  shouts  to  the 

mother-breeze, 
Floats   from   shore    to   shore    of  the    universal 

seas  ; 


RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS  213 

And  the  loneliest  death  is  fair  with  a  memory  of 

her  flowers, 
And  the  end  of  the  road  to  Hell  with  the  sense  of 

her  dews  and  showers  ! 

Who  says  that  we  shall  pass,  or  the  fame  of  us  fade 

and  die, 
While  the  living  stars  fulfil  their  round  in  the  living 

sky? 

For  the  sire  lives  in  his  sons,  and  they  pay  their 

father's  debt, 
And  the  Lion  has  left  a  whelp  wherever  his  claw 

was  set ; 

And  the  Lion  in  his  whelps,  his  whelps  that  none 
shall  brave, 

Is  but  less  strong  than  Time  and  the  great,  all- 
whelming  Grave. 


214  RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS 


in 

A  desolate  shore, 

The  sinister  seduction  of  the  Moon, 

The  menace  of  the  irreclaimable  Sea. 

Flaunting,  tawdry  and  grim, 

From  cloud  to  cloud  along  her  beat, 

Leering  her  battered  and  inveterate  leer, 

She  signals  where  he  prowls  in  the  dark  alone, 

Her  horrible  old  man, 

Mumbling  old  oaths  and  warming 

His  villainous  old  bones  with  villainous  talk — 

The  secrets  of  their  grisly  housekeeping 

Since  they  went  out  upon  the  pad 

In  the  first  twilight  of  self-conscious  Time  : 

Growling,  hideous  and  hoarse, 

Tales  of  unnumbered  Ships, 

Goodly  and  strong,  Companions  of  the  Advance, 

In  some  vile  alley  of  the  night 


RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS  215 

Waylaid  and  bludgeoned — 
Dead. 

Deep  cellared  in  primeval  ooze, 

Ruined,  dishonoured,  spoiled, 

They  lie  where  the  lean  water-worm 

Crawls  free  of  their  secrets,  and  their  broken  sides 

Bulge  with  the  slime  of  life.     Thus  they  abide, 

Thus  fouled  and  desecrate, 

The  summons  of  the  Trumpet,  and  the  while 

These  Twain,  their  murderers, 

Unravined,  imperturbable,  unsubdued, 

Hang  at  the  heels  of  their  children — She  aloft 

As  in  the  shining  streets, 

He  as  in  ambush  at  some  accomplice  door. 

The  stalwart  Ships, 

The  beautiful  and  bold  adventurers  ! 

Stationed  out  yonder  in  the  isle, 

The  tall  Policeman, 

Flashing  his  bull's-eye,  as  he  peers 

About  him  in  the  ancient  vacancy, 

Tells  them  this  way  is  safety — this  way  home. 


216  RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS 


IV 


It  came  with  the  threat  of  a  waning  moon 

And  the  wail  of  an  ebbing  tide, 
But  many  a  woman  has  lived  for  less, 

And  many  a  man  has  died  ; 
For  life  upon  life  took  hold  and  passed, 

Strong  in  a  fate  set  free, 
Out  of  the  deep  into  the  dark 

On  for  the  years  to  be. 

Between  the  gleam  of  a  waning  moon 

And  the  song  of  an  ebbing  tide, 
Chance  upon  chance  of  love  and  death 

Took  wing  for  the  world  so  wide. 
O,  leaf  out  of  leaf  is  the  way  of  the  land, 

Wave  out  of  wave  of  the  sea 
And  who  shall  reckon  what  lives  may  live 

In  the  life  that  we  bade  to  be  ? 


RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS  217 


Why,  my  heart,  do  we  love  her  so? 

(Geraldine,  Geraldine  !) 
Why  does  the  great  sea  ebb  and  flow  ? — 

Why  does  the  round  world  spin  ? 
Geraldine,  Geraldine, 

Bid  me  my  life  renew  : 
What  is  it  worth  unless  I  win. 

Love — love  and  you  ? 

Why,  my  heart,  when  we  speak  her  name 

(Geraldine,  Geraldine  !) 
Throbs  the  word  like  a  flinging  flame  ? — 

Why  does  the  Spring  begin  ? 
Geraldine,  Geraldine, 

Bid  me  indeed  to  be  : 
Open  your  heart,  and  take  us  in, 

Love — love  and  me. 


2i8  RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS 


VI 


One  with  the  ruined  sunset, 
The  strange  forsaken  sands, 

What  is  it  waits,  and  wanders, 
And  signs  with  desperate  hands  ? 

What  is  it  calls  in  the  twilight — 
Calls  as  its  chance  were  vain  ? 

The  cry  of  a  gull  sent  seaward 
Or  the  voice  of  an  ancient  pain  ? 

The  red  ghost  of  the  sunset, 
It  walks  them  as  its  own, 

These  dreary  and  desolate  reaches  . 
But  O,  that  it  walked  alone  ! 


RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS  219 


VII 


There's  a  regret 

So  grinding,  so  immitigably  sad, 

Remorse  thereby  feels  tolerant,  even  glad.   .   .  . 

Do  you  not  know  it  yet  ? 

For  deeds  undone 

Rankle  and  snarl  and  hunger  for  their  due, 
Till  there  seems  naught  so  despicable  as  you 
In  all  the  grin  o'  the  sun. 

Like  an  old  shoe 

The  sea  spurns  and  the  land  abhors,  you  lie 
About  the  beach  of  Time,  till  by  and  by 
Death,  that  derides  you  too — 

Death,  as  he  goes 

His  ragman's  round,  espies  you,  where  you  stray, 
With  half-an-eye,  and  kicks  you  out  of  his  way  ; 
And  then — and  then,  who  knows 


220  RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS 

But  the  kind  Grave 

Turns  on  you,  and  you  feel  the  convict  Worm, 
In  that  black  bridewell  working  out  his  term, 
Hanker  and  grope  and  crave  ? 

1  Poor  fool  that  might — 

That  might,  yet  would  not,  dared  not,  let  this  be, 
Think  of  it,  here  and  thus  made  over  to  me 
In  the  implacable  night  ! ' 

And  writhing,  fain 

And  like  a  triumphing  lover,  he  shall  take 
His  fill  where  no  high  memory  lives  to  make 
His  obscene  victory  vain. 


RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS  221 


VIII 

To  A.  J.  H. 

Time  and  the  Earth — 

The  old  Father  and  Mother— 

Their  teeming  accomplished, 

Their  purpose  fulfilled, 

Close  with  a  smile 

For  a  moment  of  kindness, 

Ere  for  the  winter 

They  settle  to  sleep. 

Failing  yet  gracious, 

Slow  pacing,  soon  homing, 

A  patriarch  that  strolls 

Through  the  tents  of  his  children, 

The  Sun,  as  he  journeys 

His  round  on  the  lower 

Ascents  of  the  blue, 

Washes  the  roofs 


222  RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS 

And  the  hillsides  with  clarity  ; 
Charms  the  dark  pools 
Till  they  break  into  pictures  ; 
Scatters  magnificent 
Alms  to  the  beggar  trees  ; 
Touches  the  mist-folk, 
That  crowd  to  his  escort, 
Into  translucencies 
Radiant  and  ravishing  : 
As  with  the  visible 
Spirit  of  Summer 
Gloriously  vaporised, 
Visioned  in  gold  ! 

Love,  though  the  fallen  leaf 

Mark,  and  the  fleeting  light 

And  the  loud,  loitering 

Footfall  of  darkness 

Sign  to  the  heart 

Of  the  passage  of  destiny, 

Here  is  the  ghost 

Of  a  summer  that  lived  for  us, 

Here  is  a  promise 

Of  summers  to  be. 


RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS  223 


IX 


1  As  like  the  Woman  as  you  can ' — 

(Thus  the  New  Adam  was  beguiled) — 
'  So  shall  you  touch  the  Perfect  Man  ' — 

{God  in  the  Garden  heard  and  smiled). 
'  Your  father  perished  with  his  day  : 

'  A  clot  of  passions  fierce  and  blind, 
c  He  fought,  he  hacked,  he  crushed  his  way  : 

'  Your  muscles,  Child,  must  be  of  mind. 

'  The  Brute  that  lurks  and  irks  within, 

'  How,  till  you  have  him  gagged  and  bound, 
'  Escape  the  foullest  form  of  Sin  ?  ' 

{God  in  the  Garden  laughed  and  frowned). 
1  So  vile,  so  rank,  the  bestial  mood 

'  In  which  the  race  is  bid  to  be, 
'  It  wrecks  the  Rarer  Womanhood  : 

1  Live,  therefore,  you,  for  Purity  ! 


224  RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS 

4  Take  for  your  mate  no  gallant  croup, 

c  No  girl  all  grace  and  natural  will : 
*  To  work  her  mission  were  to  stoop, 

'  Maybe  to  lapse,  from  Well  to  111. 
'  Choose  one  of  whom  your  grosser  make  ' — 

{God  in  the  Garden  laughed  outright) — 
'  The  true  refining  touch  may  take, 

*  Till  both  attain  to  Life's  last  height. 

'  There,  equal,  purged  of  soul  and  sense. 

'  Beneficent,  high-thinking,  just, 
'  Beyond  the  appeal  of  Violence, 

'  Incapable  of  common  Lust, 
'  In  mental  Marriage  still  prevail ' — 

{God  in  the  Garden  hid  His  face) — 
'  Till  you  achieve  that  Female-Male 

1  In  Which  shall  culminate  the  race.* 


RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS  225 


x 


Midsummer  midnight  skies, 

Midsummer  midnight  influences  and  airs, 

The  shining,  sensitive  silver  of  the  sea 

Touched  with  the  strange-hued  blazonings  of  dawn  ; 

And  all  so  solemnly  still  I  seem  to  hear 

The  breathing  of  Life  and  Death, 

The  secular  Accomplices, 

Renewing  the  visible  miracle  of  the  world. 

The  wistful  stars 

Shine  like  good  memories.     The  young  morning 

wind 
Blows  full  of  unforgotten  hours 
As  over  a  region  of  roses.     Life  and  Death 
Sound  on — sound  on.  .  .  .  And  the  night  magical, 
Troubled  yet  comforting,  thrills 
As  if  the  Enchanted  Castle  at  the  heart 
Of  the  wood's  dark  wonderment 
Swung  wide  his  valves,  and  filled  the  dim  sea-banks 
With  exquisite  visitants  : 

r 


226  RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS 

Words  fiery-hearted  yet,  dreams  and  desires 
With  living  looks  intolerable,  regrets 
Whose  voice  comes  as  the  voice  of  an  only  child 
Heard  from  the  grave  :  shapes  of  a  Might-Have- 

Been — 
Beautiful,  miserable,  distraught — 
The  Law  no  man  may  baffle  denied  and  slew. 

The  spell-bound  ships  stand  as  at  gaze 

To  let  the  marvel  by.    The  grey  road  glooms. 

Glimmers  .   .  .  goes  out  .  .  .  and  there,  O,  there 

where  it  fades, 
What  grace,  what  glamour,  what  wild  will, 
Transfigure  the  shadows  ?     Whose, 
Heart  of  my  heart,  Soul  of  my  soul,  but  yours  ? 

Ghosts — ghosts — the  sapphirine  air 

Teems  with  them  even  to  the  gleaming  ends 

Of  the  wild  day-spring  !     Ghosts, 

Everywhere — everywhere — till  I  and  you 

At  last — dear  love,  at  last  ! — 

Are  in  the  dreaming,  even  as  Life  and  Death, 

Twin-ministers  of  the  unoriginal  Will. 


RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS  227 


xr 


Gulls  in  an  aery  morrice 

Gleam  and  vanish  and  gleam  .   .   . 
The  full  sea,  sleepily  basking, 

Dreams  under  skies  of  dream. 

Gulls  in  an  aery  morrice 

Circle  and  swoop  and  close  .  .  . 
Fuller  and  ever  fuller 

The  rose  of  the  morning  blows. 

Gulls,  in  an  aery  morrice 

Frolicking,  float  and  fade  .  .   . 

O,  the  way  of  a  bird  in  the  sunshine, 
The  way  of  a  man  with  a  maid  ! 


228  RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS 


XII 


Some  starlit  garden  grey  with  dew, 
Some  chamber  flushed  with  wine  and  fire, 
What  matters  where,  so  I  and  you 
Are  worthy  our  desire  ? 

Behind,  a  past  that  scolds  and  jeers 
For  ungirt  loins  and  lamps  unlit ; 
In  front,  the  unmanageable  years, 
The  trap  upon  the  Pit ; 

Think  on  the  shame  of  dreams  for  deeds, 
The  scandal  of  unnatural  strife, 
The  slur  upon  immortal  needs, 
The  treason  done  to  life  : 

Arise  !  no  more  a  living  lie, 
And  with  me  quicken  and  control 
Some  memory  that  shall  magnify 
The  universal  Soul. 


RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS  229 


XIII 


To  James  McNeill  Whistler 

Under  a  stagnant  sky, 

Gloom  out  of  gloom  uncoiling  into  gloom, 

The  River,  jaded  and  forlorn, 

Welters  and  wanders  wearily — wretchedly — on  ; 

Yet  in  and  out  among  the  ribs 

Of  the  old  skeleton  bridge,  as  in  the  piles 

Of  some  dead  lake-built  city,  full  of  skulls, 

Worm-worn,  rat-riddled,  mouldy  with  memories, 

Lingers  to  babble  to  a  broken  tune 

(Once,  O,  the  unvoiced  music  of  my  heart  !) 

So  melancholy  a  soliloquy 

It  sounds  as  it  might  tell 

The  secret  of  the  unending  grief-in-grain, 

The  terror  of  Time  and  Change  and  Death, 

That  wastes  this  floating,  transitory  world. 

What  of  the  incantation 

That  forced  the  huddled  shapes  on  yonder  shore 


230  RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS 

To  take  and  wear  the  night 

Like  a  material  majesty  ? 

That  touched  the  shafts  of  wavering  fire 

About  this  miserable  welter  and  wash — 

(River,  O  River  of  Journeys,  River  of  Dreams  !)- 

Into  long,  shining  signals  from  the  panes 

Of  an  enchanted  pleasure-house, 

Where  life  and  life  might  live  life  lost  in  life 

For  ever  and  evermore  ? 

O  Death  !  O  Change  !  O  Time  ! 
Without  you,  O,  the  insufferable  eyes 
Of  these  poor  Might-Have-Beens, 
These  fatuous,  ineffectual  Yesterdays  ! 


RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS  231 


XIV 

To  J.  A.  C. 

Fresh  from  his  fastnesses 

Wholesome  and  spacious, 

The  North  Wind,  the  mad  huntsman, 

Halloas  on  his  white  hounds 

Over  the  grey,  roaring 

Reaches  and  ridges, 

The  forest  of  ocean, 

The  chace  of  the  world. 

Hark  to  the  peal 

Of  the  pack  in  full  cry, 

As  he  thongs  them  before  him, 

Swarming  voluminous, 

Weltering,  wide-wallowing, 

Till  in  a  ruining 

Chaos  of  energy, 


232  RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS 

Hurled  on  their  quarry, 
They  crash  into  foam  ! 

Old  Indefatigable, 

Time's  right-hand  man,  the  sea 

Laughs  as  in  joy 

From  his  millions  of  wrinkles  : 

Laughs  that  his  destiny, 

Great  with  the  greatness 

Of  triumphing  order, 

Shows  as  a  dwarf 

By  the  strength  of  his  heart 

And  the  might  of  his  hands. 

Master  of  masters, 
O  maker  of  heroes, 
Thunder  the  brave, 
Irresistible  message : — 
'  Life  is  worth  Living 
Through  every  grain  of  it, 
From  the  foundations 
To  the  last  edge 
Of  the  cornerstone,  death.' 


RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS  233 


xv 

You  played  and  sang  a  snatch  of  song, 

A  song  that  ail-too  well  we  knew  ; 
But  whither  had  flown  the  ancient  wrong  ; 

And  was  it  really  I  and  you  ? 
O,  since  the  end  of  life  's  to  live 

And  pay  in  pence  the  common  debt, 
What  should  it  cost  us  to  forgive 

Whose  daily  task  is  to  forget  ? 

You  babbled  in  the  well-known  voice — 

Not  new,  not  new  the  words  you  said. 
You  touched  me  off  that  famous  poise, 

That  old  effect,  of  neck  and  head. 
Dear,  was  it  really  you  and  I  ? 

In  truth  the  riddle  's  ill  to  read, 
So  many  are  the  deaths  we  die 

Before  we  can  be  dead  indeed. 


234  RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS 


XVI 

Space  and  dread  and  the  dark — 

Over  a  livid  stretch  of  sky 

Cloud-monsters  crawling,  like  a  funeral  train 

Of  huge,  primeval  presences 

Stooping  beneath  the  weight 

Of  some  enormous,  rudimentary  grief ; 

While  in  the  haunting  loneliness 

The  far  sea  waits  and  wanders  with  a  sound 

As  of  the  trailing  skirts  of  Destiny, 

Passing  unseen 

To  some  immitigable  end 

With  her  grey  henchman,  Death. 

What  larve,  what  spectre  is  this 
Thrilling  the  wilderness  to  life 
As  with  the  bodily  shape  of  Fear  ? 
What  but  a  desperate  sense, 
A  strong  foreboding  of  those  dim, 
Interminable  continents,  forlorn 


RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS  235 

And  many-silenced,  in  a  dusk 

Inviolable  utterly,  and  dead 

As  the  poor  dead  it  huddles  and  swarms  and  styes 

In  hugger-mugger  through  eternity  ? 

Life — life — let  there  be  life  ! 

Better  a  thousand  times  the  roaring  hours 

When  wave  and  wind, 

Like  the  Arch-Murderer  in  flight 

From  the  Avenger  at  his  heel, 

Storm  through  the  desolate  fastnesses 

And  wild  waste  places  of  the  world  ! 

Life — give  me  life  until  the  end, 

That  at  the  very  top  of  being, 

The  battle-spirit  shouting  in  my  blood, 

Out  of  the  reddest  hell  of  the  fight 

I  may  be  snatched  and  flung 

Into  the  everlasting  lull, 

The  immortal,  incommunicable  dream. 


236  RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS 


XVII 

CARMEN  PATIBULARE 
To  H.  S. 

Tree,  Old  Tree  of  the  Triple  Crook 

And  the  rope  of  the  Black  Election, 
'Tis  the  faith  of  the  Fool  that  a  race  you  rule 

Can  never  achieve  perfection  : 
So  '  It 's  O,  for  the  time  of  the  new  Sublime 

And  the  better  than  human  way, 
When  the  Rat  (poor  beast)  shall  come  to  his  own 

And  the  Wolf  shall  have  his  day  ! ' 

For  Tree,  Old  Tree  of  the  Triple  Beam 

And  the  power  of  provocation, 
You  have  cockered  the  Brute  with  your  dreadful 
fruit 

Till  your  thought  is  mere  stupration  : 


RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS  237 

And  '  It 's  how  should  we  rise  to  be  pure  and  wise, 

And  how  can  we  choose  but  fall, 
So  long  as  the  Hangman  makes  us  dread, 

And  the  Noose  floats  free  for  all  ? ' 

So  Tree,  Old  Tree  of  the  Triple  Coign 

And  the  trick  there  's  no  recalling, 
They  will  haggle  and  hew  till  they  hack  you  through 

And  at  last  they  lay  you  sprawling  : 
When  '  Hey  !  for  the  hour  of  the  race  in  flower 

And  the  long  good-bye  to  sin  ! ' 
And  the  fires  of  Hell  gone  out  for  the  lack 

Of  the  fuel  to  keep  them  in  ! ' 

But  Tree,  Old  Tree  of  the  Triple  Bough 

And  the  ghastly  Dreams  that  tend  you, 
Your  growth  began  with  the  life  of  Man, 

And  only  his  death  can  end  you. 
They  may  tug  in  line  at  your  hempen  twine, 

They  may  flourish  with  axe  and  saw  ; 
But  your  taproot  drinks  of  the  Sacred  Springs 

In  the  living  rock  of  Law. 

And  Tree,  Old  Tree  of  the  Triple  Fork, 
When  the  spent  sun  reels  and  blunders 


238  RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS 

Down  a  welkin  lit  with  the  flare  of  the  Pit 
As  it  seethes  in  spate  and  thunders, 

Stern  on  the  glare  of  the  tortured  air 
Your  lines  august  shall  gloom, 

And  your  master-beam  be  the  last  thing  whelmed 
In  the  ruining  roar  of  Doom. 


RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS  239 


XVIII 
I.    M. 

MARGARET  EMMA  HENLEY 

(1888-1894) 

When  you  wake  in  your  crib, 

You,  an  inch  of  experience — 

Vaulted  about 

With  the  wonder  of  darkness  ; 

Wailing  and  striving 

To  reach  from  your  feebleness 

Something  you  feel 

Will  be  good  to  and  cherish  you, 

Something  you  know 

And  can  rest  upon  blindly  : 

O,  then  a  hand 

(Your  mother's,  your  mother's  !) 

By  the  fall  of  its  fingers 

All  knowledge,  all  power  to  you, 

Out  of  the  dreary, 

Discouraging  strangenesses 

Comes  to  and  masters  you, 


24o  RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS 

Takes  you,  and  lovingly 
Woos  you  and  soothes  you 
Back,  as  you  cling  to  it, 
Back  to  some  comforting 
Corner  of  sleep. 

So  you  wake  in  your  bed, 

Having  lived,  having  loved  ; 

But  the  shadows  are  there, 

And  the  world  and  its  kingdoms 

Incredibly  faded  ; 

And  you  grope  through  the  Terror 

Above  you  and  under 

For  the  light,  for  the  warmth, 

The  assurance  of  life  ; 

But  the  blasts  are  ice-born, 

And  your  heart  is  nigh  burst 

With  the  weight  of  the  gloom 

And  the  stress  of  your  strangled 

And  desperate  endeavour  : 

Sudden  a  hand — 

Mother,  O  Mother  ! — 

God  at  His  best  to  you, 

Out  of  the  roaring, 

Impossible  silences, 


RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS  241 

Falls  on  and  urges  you, 
Mightily,  tenderly, 
Forth,  as  you  clutch  at  it, 
Forth  to  the  infinite 
Peace  of  the  Grave. 

October  1891 


242  RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS 


XIX 
I.    M. 

R.  L.  S. 

(1850-1894) 

O,  Time  and  Change,  they  range  and  range 

From  sunshine  round  to  thunder  ! — 
They  glance  and  go  as  the  great  winds  blow, 

And  the  best  of  our  dreams  drive  under  : 
For  Time  and  Change  estrange,  estrange — 

And,  now  they  have  looked  and  seen  us, 
O,  we  that  were  dear,  we  are  ail-too  near 

With  the  thick  of  the  world  between  us. 

O,  Death  and  Time,  they  chime  and  chime 

Like  bells  at  sunset  falling  ! — 
They  end  the  song,  they  right  the  wrong, 

They  set  the  old  echoes  calling  : 
For  Death  and  Time  bring  on  the  prime 

Of  God's  own  chosen  weather, 
And  we  lie  in  the  peace  of  the  Great  Release 

As  once  in  the  grass  together. 

February  1891 


RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS  243 


xx 

The  shadow  of  Dawn  ; 

Stillness  and  stars  and  over-mastering  dreams 

Of  Life  and  Death  and  Sleep  ; 

Heard  over  gleaming  flats,  the  old,  unchanging 

sound 
Of  the  old,  unchanging  Sea. 

My  soul  and  yours — 

O,  hand  in  hand  let  us  fare  forth,  two  ghosts, 

Into  the  ghostliness, 

The  infinite  and  abounding  solitudes, 

Beyond — O,  beyond  ! — beyond  .  .  . 

Here  in  the  porch 

Upon  the  multitudinous  silences 

Of  the  kingdoms  of  the  grave, 

We  twain  are  you  and  I — two  ghosts  Omnipotence 

Can  touch  no  more  ...  no  more  ! 


244  RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS 


XXI 

When  the  wind  storms  by  with  a  shout,  and  the 

stern  sea-caves 
Rejoice   in   the   tramp  and  the  roar  of  onsetting 

waves, 
Then,  then,  it  comes  home  to  the  heart  that  the 

top  of  life 
Is  the  passion  that  burns  the  blood  in  the  act  of 

strife — 
Till  you  pity  the  dead  down  there  in  their  quiet 

graves. 

But  to  drowse  with  the  fen  behind  and  the  fog 

before, 
When  the  rain-rot  spreads,  and  a  tame  sea  mumbles 

the  shore, 
Not  to  adventure,  none  to  fight,  no  right  and  no 

wrong, 
Sons  of  the  Sword  heart-sick  for  a  stave  of  your 

sire's  old  song — 
O,  you  envy  the  blessed  dead  that  can  live  no  more! 


RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS  245 


XXII 


Trees  and  the  menace  of  night ; 

Then  a  long,  lonely,  leaden  mere 

Backed  by  a  desolate  fell, 

As  by  a  spectral  battlement ;  and  then, 

Low-brooding,  interpenetrating  all, 

A  vast,  gray,  listless,  inexpressive  sky, 

So  beggared,  so  incredibly  bereft 

Of  starlight  and  the  song  of  racing  worlds, 

It  might  have  bellied  down  upon  the  Void 

Where  as  in  terror  Light  was  beginning  to  be. 

Hist  !     In  the  trees  fulfilled  of  night 
(Night  and  the  wretchedness  of  the  sky) 
Is  it  the  hurry  of  the  rain  r 
Or  the  noise  of  a  drive  of  the  Dead, 
Streaming  before  the  irresistible  Will 


246  RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS 

Through    the    strange    dusk    of  this,    the 

Debateable  Land 
Between  their  place  and  ours? 

Like  the  forgetfulness 

Of  the  work-a-day  world  made  visible, 

A  mist  falls  from  the  melancholy  sky. 

A  messenger  from  some  lost  and  loving  soul, 

Hopeless,  far  wandered,  dazed 

Here  in  the  provinces  of  life, 

A  great  white  moth  fades  miserably  past. 

Thro'  the  trees  in  the  strange  dead  night, 
Under  the  vast  dead  sky, 
Forgetting  and  forgot,  a  drift  of  Dead 
Sets  to  the  mystic  mere,  the  phantom  fell, 
And  the  unimagined  vastitudes  beyond. 


RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS  247 


XXIII 

To  P.  A.  G. 

Here  they  trysted,  here  they  strayed, 

In  the  leafage  dewy  and  boon, 
Many  a  man  and  many  a  maid, 

And  the  morn  was  merry  June. 
'  Death  is  fleet,  Life  is  sweet,' 

Sang  the  blackbird  in  the  may  ; 
And  the  hour  with  flying  feet, 

While  they  dreamed,  was  yesterday. 

Many  a  maid  and  many  a  man 

Found  the  leafage  close  and  boon ; 
Many  a  destiny  began — 

O,  the  morn  was  merry  June  ! 
Dead  and  gone,  dead  and  gone, 

(Hark  the  blackbird  in  the  may  !), 
Life  and  Death  went  hurrying  on, 

Cheek  on  cheek — and  where  were  they  ? 


248  RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS 

Dust  on  dust  engendering  dust 

In  the  leafage  fresh  and  boon, 
Man  and  maid  fulfil  their  trust — 

Still  the  morn  turns  merry  June. 
Mother  Life,  Father  Death 

(O,  the  blackbird  in  the  may  !), 
Each  the  other's  breath  for  breath, 

Fleet  the  times  of  the  world  away. 


RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS  249 


XXIV 

To  A.  C. 

Not  to  the  staring  Day, 

For  all  the  importunate  questionings  he  pursues 

In  his  big,  violent  voice, 

Shall  those  mild  things  of  bulk  and  multitude, 

The  Trees — God's  sentinels 

Over  His  gift  of  live,  life-giving  air, 

Yield  of  their  huge,  unutterable  selves. 

Midsummer-manifold,  each  one 

Voluminous,  a  labyrinth  of  life, 

They  keep  their  greenest  musings,  and  the   dim 

dreams 
That  haunt  their  leafier  privacies, 
Dissembled,  baffling  the  random  gapeseed  still 
With  blank  full-faces,  or  the  innocent  guile 
Of  laughter  flickering  back  from  shine  to  shade, 
And  disappearances  of  homing  birds, 


250  RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS 

And  frolicsome  freaks 

Of  little  boughs  that  frisk  with  little  boughs. 

But  at  the  word 

Of  the  ancient,  sacerdotal  Night, 

Night  of  the  many  secrets,  whose  effect — 

Transfiguring,  hierophantic,  dread — 

Themselves  alone  may  fully  apprehend, 

They  tremble  and  are  changed. 

In  each,  the  uncouth  individual  soul 

Looms  forth  and  glooms 

Essential,  and,  their  bodily  presences 

Touched  with  inordinate  significance, 

Wearing  the  darkness  like  the  livery 

Of  some  mysterious  and  tremendous  guild, 

They  brood — they  menace — they  appal ; 

Or  the  anguish  of  prophecy  tears  them,  and  they 

wring 
Wild  hands  of  warning  in  the  face 
Of  some  inevitable  advance  of  doom  ; 
Or,  each  to  the  other  bending,  beckoning,  signing 
As  in  some  monstrous  market-place, 
They  pass  the  news,  these  Gossips  of  the  Prime, 
In  that  old  speech  their  forefathers 
Learned  on  the  lawns  of  Eden,  ere  they  heard 


RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS  251 

The  troubled  voice  of  Eve 

Naming  the  wondering  folk  of  Paradise. 

Your  sense  is  sealed,  or  you  should  hear  them 

tell 
The  tale  of  their  dim  life,  with  all 
Its  compost  of  experience  :  how  the  Sun 
Spreads  them  their  daily  feast, 
Sumptuous,  of  light,  firing  them  as  with  wine  ; 
Of  the  old  Moon's  fitful  solicitude 
And  those  mild  messages  the  Stars 
Descend  in  silver  silences  and  dews  ; 
Or  what  the  sweet-breathing  West, 
Wanton  with  wading  in  the  swirl  of  the  wheat, 
Said,  and  their  leafage  laughed  ; 
And  how  the  wet-winged  Angel  of  the  Rain 
Came  whispering    .    .    .  whispering ;  and  the  gifts 

of  the  Year — 
The  sting  of  the  stirring  sap 
Under  the  wizardry  of  the  young-eyed  Spring, 
Their  summer  amplitudes  of  pomp, 
Their  rich  autumnal  melancholy,  and  the  shrill, 
Embittered  housewifery 
Of  the  lean  Winter  :  all  such  things, 
And  with  them  all  the  goodness  of  the  Master, 


252  RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS 

Whose    right   hand    blesses    with    increase    and 

life, 
Whose  left  hand  honours  with  decay  and  death. 

Thus  under  the  constraint  of  Night 

These  gross  and  simple  creatures, 

Each  in  his  scores  of  rings,  which  rings  are  years, 

A.  servant  of  the  Will ! 

And  God,  the  Craftsman,  as  He  walks 

The  floor  of  His  workshop,  hearkens,  full  of  cheer 

In  thus  accomplishing 

The  aims  of  His  miraculous  artistry. 


RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS  253 


XXV 

What  have  I  done  for  you, 

England,  my  England  ? 
What  is  there  I  would  not  do, 

England,  my  own  ? 
With  your  glorious  eyes  austere, 
As  the  Lord  were  walking  near, 
Whispering  terrible  things  and  dear 

As  the  Song  on  your  bugles  blown, 
England — 

Round  the  world  on  your  bugles  blown 

Where  shall  the  watchful  Sun, 

England,  my  England, 
Match  the  master-work  you  've  done, 

England,  my  own  ? 
When  shall  he  rejoice  agen 
Such  a  breed  of  mighty  men 
As  come  forward,  one  to  ten, 

To  the  Song  on  your  bugles  blown, 
England — 

Down  the  years  on  your  bugles  blown  ? 


254  RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS 

Ever  the  faith  endures, 

England,  my  England  : — 
*  Take  and  break  us  :  we  are  yours, 

'  England,  my  own  ! 
'  Life  is  good,  and  joy  runs  high 
'  Between  English  earth  and  sky  : 
'  Death  is  death  ;  but  we  shall  die 

*  To  the  Song  on  your  bugles  blown, 
1  England — 

c  To  the  stars  on  your  bugles  blown ! 

They  call  you  proud  and  hard, 

England,  my  England  : 
You  with  worlds  to  watch  and  ward, 

England,  my  own  ! 
You  whose  mailed  hand  keeps  the  keys 
Of  such  teeming  destinies 
You  could  know  nor  dread  nor  ease 

Were  the  Song  on  your  bugles  blown, 
England, 

Round  the  Pit  on  your  bugles  blown  ! 

Mother  of  Ships  whose  might, 
England,  my  England, 


RHYMES  AND  RHYTHMS  255 

Is  the  fierce  old  Sea's  delight, 

England,  my  own, 
Chosen  daughter  of  the  Lord, 
Spouse-in-Chief  of  the  ancient  sword, 
There  's  the  menace  of  the  Word 

In  the  Song  on  your  bugles  blown, 
England — 

Out  of  heaven  on  your  bugles  blown  ! 


EPILOGUE 

These,  to  you  now,  O,  more  than  ever  now — 

Now  that  the  Ancient  Enemy 

Has  passed,  and  we,  we  two  that  are  one,  have  seen 

A  piece  of  perfect  Life 

Turn  to  so  ravishing  a  shape  of  Death 

The  Arch-Dis comforter  might  well  have  smiled 

In  pity  and  pride, 

Even  as  he  bore  his  lovely  and  innocent  spoil 

From  those  home-kingdoms  he  left  desolate  ! 

Poor  windlestraws 

On  the  great,  sullen,  roaring  pool  of  Time 

And  Chance  and  Change,  I  know  I 

But  they  are  yours,  as  1  am,  till  we  attain 

That  end  for  which  we  make,  we  two  that  are  one : 

A  little,  exquisite  Ghost 

Between  us,  smiling  with  the  serenest  eyes 

Seen  in  this  world,  and  calling,  calling  still 

In  that  clear  voice  whose  infinite  subtleties 

Of  sweetness,  thrilling  back  across  the  grave, 

Break  the  poor  heart  to  hear  : — 

c  Come,  Dadsie,  come  ! 

Mama,  how  long — how  long  ! ' 

July  1897. 


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